News & Updates — Grantee Spotlight

Stay tuned as FORE continues to highlight grantees and programs addressing the opioid and overdose response in rural communities during the month of March. Please register for a March 26th webinar at the bottom of the page.

In their applications for a stake of the $50 billion federal Rural Health Transformation Program fund, nearly all states signaled they plan to make expanding access to behavioral health and substance use treatment services in rural communities a priority. As they develop implementation plans, we hope they will consider the outsized role that community-based organizations (CBOs) play in identifying and meeting local needs, particularly in rural and frontier areas where health care providers are often in short supply.

A new video of Simply Hope Family Services, a FORE grantee in rural Burley, ID, demonstrates how CBOs can form the connective tissue between schools, government agencies, and treatment providers that share an interest in preventing and treating opioid use disorder and supporting families affected by it. The nonprofit was launched a decade ago by Nancy Winmill and Sheri Allred, two mothers whose sons have survived opioid overdoses. Both wanted to reduce the stigma facing families affected by substance use disorders (SUD) in rural communities and foster resiliency in youth by offering a continuum of supports. “We wanted to create the space and center that we needed when our kids were in crisis,” Winmill says.

Winmill and Allred launched a weekly support group for families in 2015 and expanded services as they discovered an unmet need for programs to prevent suicide and substance use among youth. In 2022, they opened a drop-in center that offers after-school programming for young people. “A lot of the kids are considered old enough to be home alone, but they don’t want to be,” Winmill says.

Simply Hope also established the Safe Teen Assessment Center that now screens more than 300 children and youth (ages 5-18) a year for substance use, suicide risk, and other behavioral health needs. Staff make referrals to higher levels of care and can make direct admissions to residential treatment programs and partial hospitalization programs in Idaho and Utah. “They can skip the ER and come to us,” Winmill says. Therapists in private practices have begun turning to the organization’s case management staff to support patients with food or housing needs so the therapists can concentrate on addressing behavioral health issues, says Jon Maher, LMFT, Simply Hope’s clinical director. “We’ve been able to create that connectivity. The counselors understand [they’re] not alone in this anymore. [That’s community-building] as well,” Maher says.

As Winmill and Allred describe in the video, despite their effectiveness, finding funding has been an ongoing challenge. A $150,000 grant from FORE, issued in 2023 as part of our Community-Driven Responses to Opioid Use and Overdose Mortality Program, enabled Simply Hope to hire staff and forge new relationships with schools, hospitals, and local therapists. “We have momentum now,” Allred says. “We’ve had people come from [neighboring states] to see how we’re pulling together community resources,” she says. The FORE funding also enabled Simply Hope to build capacity for measuring and demonstrating the effectiveness of their efforts, which helped them secure opioid settlement funds from a neighboring county that wanted to bring similar supports to local youth.

“Simply Hope shows what is possible when community-based organizations are recognized as essential partners in opioid response efforts who best understand local needs. By partnering with CBOs, states can gain insight, trust, and the ability to respond to substance use disorder and overdose in ways that are culturally grounded and genuinely effective,” says Alison Sutter, LSMW, MPH, FORE’s senior program officer.

Webinar: Opportunities to Improve Rural Responses to Opioid Use Disorder and Overdose (March 26, 2026)

Many rural Americans have less access to addiction treatment and recovery services for opioid use disorder (OUD) than those living in suburbs or cities, due to increased stigma, a dearth of trained providers, and a lack of non-medical supports. With the authorization of the Rural Health Transformation Program, a $50 billion federal initiative to empower states to strengthen rural health systems across America, there is a prime opportunity to expand and improve access to OUD treatment and responses to overdose in rural America as part of the broader challenges facing rural communities today.

FORE grantees are finding innovative ways to reach those affected by OUD and overdose in rural communities and are overcoming the barriers that can keep them from getting treatment and recovery services.

Please join us on Thursday, March 26th at 2-3 pm EST as we welcome FORE grantees, state leaders, and others as they discuss the current barriers and opportunities on the horizon for rural communities to strengthen access to OUD treatment and overdose services.

Register for the Webinar Here

We invite you to look at our Resources page for the most up-to-date information and guidance. You can view a recording of our previous webinars below. As always, please reach out with questions and/or resources that you believe would benefits others.