CHARLESTON, W.Va.— The Kanawah County Commission voted Tuesday to approve $250,000 for Goodwill Industries of Kanawha Valley Inc’s new program, and the funds will come from the Opioid Settlement Fund.
The new program, Substance Use Disorder Transitional Employment Program, also known as SUD-TEP, will serve Kanawha County residents in the ongoing battle against the opioid epidemic. And they want the program to help reduce the recidivism, how many individuals resort back to drugs, to drop here in Kanawha County.
Danial Gum, VP of Mission Advancement at Goodwill Industries said that the program would be a mix of educational and workplace programs in order to help people who have a substance abuse disorder get jobs.
“So, they will have a 75% work component, as well as a 25% education component where they get paid for both services,” Gum said. “We will do a series of services with them, including self-advocacy, soft skills, worker rights. And then eventually the goal is to move them onto full time employment, long term, with a livable wage.”
The program will offer two weeks of soft skills education, with the first day being about self-advocacy so they know if they are being taking advantage of and Goodwill’s representative said that after the two weeks are over, they will move on to training.
“At the end of those two weeks, they graduate into paid training, with Goodwill. And from there we do 16 weeks of paid training along with continuing education of that 25% for what they need for their substance abuse program,” Gum said.
And their plan for getting people signed up for this program will be made with companies such as Prestera who are already in agreement with them, where Goodwill would go and pick the individuals up from these facilities in order for them to get to the training.
“It’s really a variety of locations that we already have on board with us,” Gum said. “We currently have a work base program as well that we serve out of our westside location, we serve about 2500 individuals out of that a year, not SUD focused.”
Gum said that Goodwill has already put in over $300,000 of their funds into the program and with the $250,000 they will be able to actually start the program.
And Goodwill decided to bring the program to Kanawha County because of the success rate that they have had in Wood County, where the program was started by SW Resources but taken over by Goodwill Industries.
“Well, it was under SW Resources, they are now under the Goodwill umbrella, within the past year we took over their organization,” Gum said. They’ve had a very good run of show with this program. They had 57 individuals enrolled in their program, with a 81% success rate, that were employed at the 120th day mark.”
And according to commissioner Ben Salango, the success rate in Wood County was good to hear, so they know the money is going to a good cause.
“With the amount that you guys are putting in and the fact that you’ve had success in Wood County through the acquisition with SW. It seems like you guys know what you’re doing, what you’re in for, and it should be as successful as in Wood County,” commissioner Ben Salango said.