UNE awarded $1.6M federal grant to launch opioid response workforce training program

The University of New England has been awarded a four-year, $1.6 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to expand workforce training in medication-assisted treatment and recovery for opioid use disorder in the state’s rural reaches.

The initiative, called the University of New England Northern Border Rural Workforce (UNE-RCORP), is designed to meet urgent behavioral health workforce needs in Maine’s rural communities, where the impact of the opioid crisis is especially acute; Maine continues to face some of the nation’s highest rates of fatal overdoses, with rural counties carrying a disproportionate burden.

The grant project will be led by Project Director Devon Anne Sherwood, Pharm.D., BCPP, associate professor in UNE’s School of Pharmacy, and managed by UNE’s new School of Public and Planetary Health (SPPH). 

This marks the first federal grant awarded to SPPH, which through health, medicine, business, and policy expertise educates systems-level thinkers in addressing interconnected human health challenges, such as disease and shifting environmental challenges, through an interprofessional lens.

The grant will establish a certification program for UNE’s health professions students — as well as current health care providers across all of Maine’s rural counties looking to advance their skills — to gain competency in integrated, interprofessional approaches to medication-assisted treatment (MAT), medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD), and medication-assisted recovery (MAR) therapies, with the ultimate aim of bolstering the mental health workforce in underserved communities. 

Through the initiative, students will be trained across UNE’s graduate health programs in pharmacy, social work, physician assistant, and medicine, as well as in UNE’s undergraduate nursing and social work programs. All students in these programs will receive baseline training in substance use disorders and opioid use disorder, including stigma and social determinants of health, and will graduate with the credentials that show they are ready to help meet these needs. 

The training will be woven directly into the students’ classroom and clinical experiences while also being offered online to already-practicing health care providers across the state’s rural health systems, with the ultimate aim of bolstering the mental health workforce in underserved communities.

“This program addresses a critical gap in Maine’s behavioral health system by preparing the next generation of clinicians to deliver evidence-based care for opioid use disorder,” said Sherwood, who will serve as principal investigator. “By starting at the ground level with our students, we are building a pipeline of professionals trained to address and treat opioid use disorders and provide access to life-saving care in the rural communities that need it most.”

This work expands partnerships and builds a formalized network with rural health care providers and advocacy organizations throughout Maine, including hospitals, federally qualified health centers, and community-based partners, who will serve as training sites and help inform program management.

Partnerships include the Maine Medical Association, Maine Primary Care Association, Maine Area Health Education Center (AHEC) Network, and AMHC outpatient treatment and recovery centers. Hospital partners include MaineHealth Franklin Hospital in Farmington, Northern Light Health — with hospital and outpatient locations across Maine — Penobscot Community Health Care system, and Eastport Health Care of Washington County.

The grant further exemplifies UNE’s strong record of federally funded workforce initiatives, including recent HRSA-supported projects in geriatrics, rural physician assistant training, and programming offered through the UNE-administered Maine AHEC Network, which ensures that training opportunities reach students from high school through professional practice.

Sherwood said that, by creating an “arc” of education that extends from early exposure programs to advanced certification, the project aims to not only increase the number of behavioral health providers but also improve their retention in rural practice.

“By both intentionally placing UNE students at respective clinical practice sites to foster job placements post-graduation, and by engaging current health care providers by providing discipline specific continuing education credits, the grant allows UNE to build sustainable network partnerships with mental health centers throughout rural Maine counties,” Sherwood said.

Over the next four years, the UNE-RCORP project additionally will:

• Train hundreds of UNE health professions students and health care employees working at network partner sites throughout  all rural Maine counties by providing certification programming in MAT, MOUD, and MAR practices
• Develop interprofessional curricula and simulations to address stigma, social determinants of health, and patient engagement
• Support rural health facilities in becoming eligible for federal loan repayment programs to strengthen workforce recruitment and retention

Sherwood said the University is uniquely positioned to lead this work as one of few independent universities with a comprehensive health education mission. 

This is exemplified by the University’s signature, interprofessional approach to health professions education, with UNE housing Maine’s only medical school, pharmacy school, and physician assistant program, as well as Northern New England’s only dental college and a full range of interprofessionally aligned health care programs, on one unified health sciences campus in Portland.