There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you. In support of this mission, FTAC collaborated with the University of Rochester Undergraduate Program in Public Health to interview women and men of the area on what they need to achieve sustained recovery. Trained interviewers conducted 28 open-ended, in-depth interviews. The findings of this report are intended to help the FTAC and its partners advocate for culturally relevant recovery supports that are necessary for healing within this particular population, and that have historically not been adequately addressed by city, county, or private industry programming.
In a departure from the national narrative, which shows the opioid epidemic as primarily rooted in over-prescribed opioids, the pathway to substance use among these participants was trauma and poverty. Additionally, implementing appropriate SUD services for this population includes creating separate services for women Latinas and their specific circumstances.
Using the dimensions of recovery outlined by Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration SAMHSA and framing the suggested services within a biopsychosocial model, we present a holistic list of issues to be addressed.
The recommendations of this report target community-level interventions to help build recovery capital: specific long-term resources in physical, social, human, and cultural capital that support people with SUDs through the complicated journey of reclaiming their lives. To all the participants, we are extremely grateful for your assistance in this most important project to transform the substance use community and conversation.
On behalf of those listed below, we thank you. We are grateful for the hard work of University of Rochester undergraduate students in public health and anthropology for committing their time to attend training workshops, interview men and women, and organize the information for analysis. For 6 weeks, the combine analytic team met on Wednesday evenings to define codes, review transcripts, and discuss interpretations of the information.
