Arkansas coalition receives $1M for opioid family counseling

By Alex Kienlen
Fox16

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Arkansas continues to see the impact of funding received from the November 2022 $200 million opioid settlement.

The Hope Movement Coalition announced Friday that it had received $1 million from the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership. AORP is an initiative of the Association of Arkansas Counties and the Arkansas Municipal League charged with the distribution of settlement funds.

Hope Movement is a state-wide organization that serves families affected by illicit drug and fentanyl poisoning. The funding will help develop services serving families that have lost someone due to substance abuse or fentanyl poisoning.

The organization’s emphasis is on mental health counseling. Grieving families are assigned licensed case managers, along with trained parent-sibling peers.

Hope Movement’s founder Staci James said that case managers and peers would assess family members’ critical needs, then connect them with resources to reduce their chances of experiencing a mental decline and-or substance misuse due to their grief. Read more.