For over a decade, Gateway’s St. Louis Outpatient Program has been incorporating medication assistance to complement the traditional psychosocial treatment modalities provided to clients with substance use disorders. Addiction treatment medications have proven to be an effective intervention to assist clients with detoxification, including in an outpatient setting. The treatment protocols include partial agonist and antagonist medications such as buprenorphine and Naltrexone products and varies from client to client based on individual needs and clients’ responses to the medications. Gateway Foundation clinicians in St. Louis have found that medication assistance, particularly for the high number of clients with alcohol- and opioid use disorders has reinforced our methods for attacking these challenging disorders. In order to reinforce this clinically based-intervention, Gateway Foundation has partnered with Texas Christian University’s (TCU) Institute of Behavioral Research (IBR) to conduct formal research into strategies to improve the implementation of MAR interventions with our population.
Although the evidence base for MAR is well-established, there remains persistent skepticism within the criminal justice system about the feasibility and impact of promoting medication-assisted recovery . Through Gateway’s participation in this study, we hope to not only improve our client outcomes in St. Louis, but also to provide foundational support to broaden the availability of MAR in additional community corrections markets. In so doing, Gateway continues its commitment to improving the field of correctional treatment.
