The Friends of Recovery of Delaware and Otsego Counties (FORDO) is one of the substance use disorder and recovery agencies located in Chenango County. (Photo by Lilli Iannella)

CHENANGO COUNTY – Chenango County currently has four substance use disorder agencies providing different inpatient and outpatient services, and the county will soon see a new fifth agency as well as other additional services in existing ones.

This fall, the Cayuga Addiction Recovery Services (CARS) will be providing treatment through their Mobile Medication Unit to Chenango County, said Elizabeth Warneck, the director of the Chenango County Behavioral Health Services (CCBHS).

“The Mobile Medication Unit through CARS will be able to provide ongoing medication and therapy for addiction treatment including access to medications that have been inaccessible for community members that have a substance use disorder,” she said in an emailed statement to The Evening Sun.

The agency provides longer-term residential treatment as well as in-person and online counseling, their website says, and their opioid treatment program also dispenses daily medications including suboxone and methadone, which both ease symptoms of opioid withdrawal.

In addition to CARS, the county has two treatment providers, one harm reduction service and one recovery provider that also utilizes harm reduction, she said.

The Friends of Recovery of Delaware and Otsego Counties (FORDO) is the county’s recovery and harm reduction service, Warneck said. The organization helps bridge a gap between those in recovery to those who are suffering from addiction, offering one-on-one services led by people who have experienced addiction in the past themselves, said Kyle LaFever, the Peer Services Coordinator at FORDO.

Recently, FORDO received almost $300,000 from a SAMHSA grant, which he said will be used to create a recovery center in Chenango County starting on July 1. FORDO’s The Turning Point in Norwich also installed a Narcan vending machine in June, which provides free units.

The CCBHS and The Addiction Center of Broome County (ACBC) are the two treatment providers, Warneck said, and both offer outpatient substance use disorder programs and therapy. She said ACBC provides more intensive outpatient treatment, where someone could attend programming every day or multiple times per week, while individuals involved with CCBHS are usually seen just once a week.

The county’s harm reduction service is the Southern Tier AIDS Program (STAP), which includes a syringe exchange program. The program offers new sterile syringes in place of used ones to reduce the risk of infection with HIV, hepatitis C and other blood-borne illnesses among injection drug users, their site says.

While agencies across the county have created more services, opioid overdose events have also been growing. In Chenango County, according to the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH), opioid overdose deaths in 2020 were four times the amount reported in 2010.

Public Health Director Isaiah Sutton said that although the county has partners addressing addiction, he thinks the county could use more providers for the number of people who need the service.

“I don’t think we’re at a point where we are getting ahead of it,” he said. “Access to effective treatment systems, whether it be inpatient or outpatient alternatives, is still a demand here.”

Within the last two years, a challenge for CCBHS has been keeping up a workforce to meet the demand for their services, Warneck said. LaFever also said that funding has been an issue for his organization, which relies on grants.

LaFever said he thinks those who need the services are using them, but programs like his can always reach more people.

“I think the most important person that we can help is the individual who hasn’t made it into our doorway yet,” he said.

To contact Chenango County’s substance use disorder agencies:

The Turning Point of Chenango County (Norwich): (607) 373-3825

Chenango County Behavioral Health Services: (607) 337-1600

The Addiction Center of Broome County (Chenango County/Norwich): (607) 304-5501

The Southern Tier AIDS Program (Chenango County/Norwich): (607) 373-4619

The Cayuga Addiction Recovery Services (starting this fall in Chenango County): (607) 273-5500