Denver Opioid Settlement Funded Projects

5280 Recovery High School

Through authentic academic experiences and a culture of holistic wellness embedded in strong diverse community, 5280 High School prepares all students for success in college, their future career, and anything life throws at them.

Recovery High School Expansion

5280 Recovery High School is receiving capital infrastructure funds to increase student capacity and to offer additional behavioral health and recovery support through additional space for staff and student meetings. 5280 is a nationally recognized model for blending recovery and education. With this expansion, they will serve many more Denver adolescents in need of a safe and substance-free school and expand on-site wraparound support for their most vulnerable students.

Length of Project: 01/01/2024 - 12/31/2025

Funding Awarded: $49,7421

Advocates for Recovery

We strive to be the voice of hope, empowering those affected by substance use through advocacy, education, and peer recovery support services in all Colorado communities.

Culturally Responsive Peer Recovery Support Expansion

This project will expand services for people of color (POC) in Denver who are increasingly impacted by opioid misuse and overdose. The provider aims to reduce racial disparities in access to peer recovery support by providing an authentically inclusive community reflective of Denver’s diversity. This includes investments in staff training, an equity audit of policies, procedures, and peer coach training materials, launch of a justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion advisory committee, and hiring of a director of inclusion and community outreach and a bilingual/bicultural peer coach to expand access and inclusion to the Denver Spanish-speaking community.

Length of Project: 01/01/2024 - 12/31/2026

Funding Amount: $91,0435.70

Biobot Analytics

Our mission is to transform wastewater infrastructure into public health observatories.

High-Risk Substance Wastewater Intelligence

This project will implement a wastewater-based epidemiology program to detect and quantify population consumption levels and illegal dumping events of fentanyl and other high-risk substances in the Denver sewer shed, to generate city-wide public health insights to compare against overdose reports to better inform goals for prevention, harm reduction, and the measurement of overall abatement efficacy.

Length of Project: 01/01/2024 - 12/31/2026

Funding Amount: $150,000.24

Roads to Recovery

This project will divert people with mental health and/or substance use needs out of the criminal justice system and into a city-coordinated pipeline of intervention, treatment, and rehabilitation in the Denver area.

Length of Project: 7/11/2024 - 12/31/2026

Funding Amount: $2,186,648.20

Colorado Health Network

Colorado Health Network (CHN) has sought to innovatively and equitably meet the evolving needs of individuals in Colorado living with and at risk of acquiring HIV and other health conditions.

Increasing Accessibility to Care and Treatment for People Who Use Drugs

This project will address barriers to behavioral health and healthcare including substance use treatment services that people who use drugs (PWUD) are experiencing. Colorado Health Network’s established harm reduction program will play an integral role in connecting PWUD successfully to care by having a Behavioral Health Clinician on-site to meet with PWUD immediately. The Clinical Care Coordinator will provide integrated care management in order to meet the complex medical, psychological and social needs of PWUD.

Length of Project: 01/01/2024 - 12/31/2026

Funding Amount: $1,272,759.84

Access Point

This project will expand Colorado Health Network's harm reduction program, Access Point, to meet the increased demand for services at its brick-and-mortar facility and to expand its reach in the community through mobile outreach. The planned initiatives, such as hiring additional staff, mobile outreach, naloxone distribution, educational trainings, and drug checking services, along with access to integrated medical and behavioral health services, reflect a comprehensive and holistic approach to care.

Length of Project: 01/01/2024 - 12/31/2026

Funding Amount: $3,006,767.61

Denver Health and Hospital Authority (DHHA)

To enhance health and promote equity with communities.

Engaging Youth Expertise (EYE) for Opioid Abatement

This project will prevent opioid overdose, promote harm reduction, and bolster resilience and positive coping among Denver youth. Denver Health is creating Engaging Youth Expertise for Opioid Abatement. Leveraging Denver Health's commitment to authentic youth engagement and extensive experience addressing substance misuse within Denver’s communities, the project will create a network of youth in Denver who are prepared to prevent overdose and other harms associated with opioid use among their peers, while also promoting a model for engaging young people with lived experience in addressing youth opioid abatement needs.

Length of Project: 01/01/2024 - 12/31/2026

Funding Amount: $498,904.3

Opioid Stewardship Clinical Pharmacist Specialist Program

This project is modeled after antimicrobial stewardship programs. The opioid stewardship program will ensure pain management is an organization priority with goals of combatting the opioid epidemic and ensuring regulatory compliance. Integrated into a multidisciplinary team, the opioid stewardship clinical pharmacist specialist (CPS) is uniquely positioned to have significant impacts on patient care and recommended therapy practices. The CPS will support opioid stewardship efforts by providing current, evidence-based education to the healthcare team and patients in addition to creating pain management plans, coordinating care, and managing opioid related adverse drug events.

Length of Project: 01/01/2024 - 12/31/2026

Funding Amount: $743,479

Ask CAM TRAIL Expansion

This project will expand Denver Health's established Ask the Center for Addiction Medicine’s Technical Resource and Information Line (Ask CAM TRAIL) community phone line to offer live calls Monday through Friday, 9am – 5pm. A strategic communications strategy will be implemented to reach the geographic areas of Denver that have the highest emergency department utilization and overdose rates. Ask CAM TRAIL will provide individuals and healthcare professionals with education, resources, screening, and referrals to help link community members to the right level of substance treatment at Denver Health or within the community. This project will reduce barriers to entering care.

Length of Project: 01/01/2024 - 12/31/2026

Funding Amount: $898,364.80

Denver Public Schools (DPS)

Educational equity is our collective responsibility. We prepare students for career, college and life. We create conditions and partnerships where students, families and team members belong and thrive.

Substance Use Prevention Float Program

This project will dispatch DPS Substance Use Prevention Float staff to schools as needed to provide support to students who are at the beginning stages of substance misuse. This support will be provided through the implementation of Teen Intervene, an evidence-based, Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) program. These staff will also provide evidence-based classroom programs that have demonstrated effectiveness in preventing drug-misuse.

Length of Project: 01/01/2024 - 12/31/2026

Funding Amount: $916,471.042

Harm Reduction Action Center

The mission of the Harm Reduction Action Center is to educate, empower, and advocate for the health and dignity of Denver's people who inject drugs, in accordance with harm reduction principles.

Permanent Harm Reduction Facility

This project will support HRAC with the purchase of a permanent facility to house their critical work providing health access services to over 4,000 individuals per year. Since 2002, the HRAC has been the primary provider of centered education and services for people who inject drugs in Colorado. More recently, since 2020, smokers of crack, meth, and fentanyl have been integrated into services. HRAC has been successful in their work by cultivating a truly safe space where people are respected, treated with dignity, and empowered to improve their health.

Length of Project: 01/01/2024 - 12/31/2026

Funding Amount: $935,001

The Naloxone Project

We are combatting the stigma behind the opioid epidemic. Creating an equitable and sustainable medical system that provides Naloxone and saves lives.

First Responder Naloxone Distribution and Harm Reduction Pilot Program

This project will be one of two in The Naloxone Project’s development of the new Colorado Prehospital Addiction Care Consortium, an association of first responder and addiction care organizations working to improve substance use disorder management and reduce overdoses. In partnership with Denver Health and the Department of Public Safety, the Provider will develop and deliver training to over emergency medical service, police, and prehospital personnel to assess for overdose risk and distribute naloxone in leave behind kits.

Length of Project: 01/01/2024 - 12/31/2026

Funding Amount: $1,296,758

Tribe Recovery

Tribe Recovery supports individuals to become independent, believe in themselves, and develop a life worth living. We create hope within a supportive family setting, provide a safe therapeutic space to heal and role model the path of recovery.

Transportation for Tribe Recovery Homes

This project will purchase vans to transport participant from recovery homes and other locations to Medicaid services, therapies, activities, intake transports, detox runs, and meetings, to support expanding services and capacity for individuals recovering from substance use disorder and mental health challenges.

Length of Project: 01/01/2024 - 12/31/2025

Funding Amount: $110,001

Young People in Recovery

To provide the life skills and peer support to help young people recover from substance use disorder and reach their full potential.

Peer Recovery Support & Harm Reduction for Denver Youth and Young Adults

This project’s activities will aim to increase the number of young people in Denver who can access the full continuum of care of recovery services for opioid and substance use disorder. This will include providing training and education about naloxone for people who may be at risk of overdose and expanding the distribution of naloxone throughout the community.

Length of Project: 01/01/2024 - 12/31/2026

Funding Amount: $403,319.37

Luceo CMG

Luceo is a strategic media, social marketing, and creative production agency based in Denver. For more than 15 years, we have concentrated on effecting change on important issues through visual storytelling and mass media advocacy.

Harm Reduction Public Education Campaign

Luceo CMG developed, produced, and implemented a Public Education Campaign to inform target audiences about the risks and dangers of opioid/substance use; educate target audiences how to recognize, prevent, and respond to opioid overdose; and increase awareness of the availability and utility of resources, support, treatment, and harm reduction programs for people who use drugs.

Length of Project: 01/01/2024 - 12/31/2024

Funding Amount: $160,001

Family Advocate Support Team (FAST) Program

To promote healthy grieving and coping skills so families and loved ones can process their grief and loss in a meaningful way.

Care Packages for Family of Overdose Deaths

The Denver Office of the Medical Examiner provided care packages and holiday meals for residents who lost a loved one to overdose.

Length of Project: 01/01/2024 - 12/31/2024

Funding Amount: $9,705