Alcohol / Drug Council of North Carolina

ADCNC National Guard Veteran’s Project Report

The Alcohol and Drug Council of North Carolina’s (ADCNC) National Guard Veteran’s Project’s mission is to improve the ability of the State to provide appropriate clinical substance abuse interventions, assessments and treatment referrals to Service Members (SM) who are at risk for substance abuse disorders.

The primary goals of this project are to improve Service Member’s access to quality drug assessments in order to help military organizations determine soldier’s fitness for duty and to coordinate the assessments with additional services as needed. Last winter it came to our attention that Service Members who had a positive drug screen and needed a Substance Abuse Assessment did not have the funds to pay for the assessments. The ADCNC was getting calls about where to get free Assessments. We made contact with the State National Guard, met with them and agreed to set up a program that would result in Service Members receiving free Substance Abuse Agreements.

The ADCNC Contract with the State National Guard was finalized and we have been fully operational for nine months. ADCNC coordinated training programs for the LCAS through Worth Bolton of UNC-CH and his staff. Currently 48 Licensed Clinical Addictions Specialists (LCAS) have been trained to conduct Substance Abuse Assessments and initial Case Management Services via ADCNC. The Cadre of addiction specialists accessed through ADCNC have all completed the Initial Training and ASI-MV Assessment Training. The majority of these providers have indicated an interest in becoming TRICARE Providers and collaboration is ongoing to make them available to Caroline and NC’s Family Assistance Centers regarding Substance Abuse Issues.

This year additional Initial Trainings will be conducted to continue recruiting LCAS’s for this Project, and Advanced Training will be made available to those completing the Initial Training.

ADCNC has held two Contract Meetings, in Winston-Salem and Goldsboro respectively and was attended by 26 providers. 22 have signed Memorandum of Agreements with ADCNC to date. The others have been contacted and are in the process of renewing their LCAS license and/or obtaining their Professional Liability Insurance required to provide services as an Independent Contractor with ADCNC.

We contracted with Inflexxion, the ASI-MV provider, in November and we’re able to come in 23% under our projected budget for 100 assessments per year. Currently we have 11 active ASI-MV accounts to date.

We have set-up a procedure as requested by the State National Guard whereby Commanding Officers (CO) will contact SSGT Cromartie, State National Guard Prevention Specialist, with requests. He will then forward the information to the CO to contact ADCNC directly with a voucher request. 39 vouchers have been issued to date.

Our initial database has been established and is being updated which will enable us to identify demographic data, trends and results in order to continually improve our services.

In June 2009 ADCNC published and distributed 3,000 information cards on the program during the National Guard’s state-wide training program.

We are anticipating concerns about funding for Assessment Services that may be indicated for Service Members not able/willing to access TRICARE or enter the VA system of care.

For further information about this project and how to receive an assessment contact Wayne Tesh at wtesh@alcoholdrughelp.org or call 1-800-688-4232.