Addressing SUD treatment capacity requires challenging a common, standard narrative that treatment is non-existent, too costly, too far away, or otherwise unavailable. While such concerns may well be true, accepting this narrative often overlooks and underutilizes resources (e.g., services, funding, or staff) that are ineffectively aligned with community demand.

A robust, effective community-based substance use disorder (SUD) service delivery network means that residents can access a continuum of high-quality treatment and other services. TASC’s Center for Health and Justice has identified the following nine critical service domains comprising such a network.

Treatment and recovery services expansion work is all the more critical in communities facing constricting resources and competing priorities. This brief guides how to analyze, access, and leverage different funding resources to help optimize and expand capacity.

As communities pursue local responses to the opioid crisis that are both effective and sustainable, it is critical that partners become familiar with one another and develop shared awareness of the strengths and challenges of the different systems in which they operate. A foundation of mutual understanding creates a collaborative environment well-positioned to deliver services meeting the needs of the community. This document is intended to guide planning discussions among diverse partners.

The “Naloxone Plus” framework—a nationally recognized model for overdose response and prevention in communities hit hardest by the crisis—creates a mechanism that bridges the gap to services following an overdose reversal. Engagement efforts at this precise time, during or immediately following an overdose reversal episode, leverage a unique window of opportunity to yield interest in services.