08/20/2024
It's 2024, and we'd like to acknowledge the important collaboration with our community health center partners. One program that works with many health centers throughout the state is the NC Formerly Incarcerated Transition (NC FIT) Program. NC FIT was launched in the department in 2019, and will soon be expanding to its 8th county, with Forsyth County joining Durham, Orange, Wake, Mecklenburg, Guilford, Beaufort, and New Hanover Counties.
NC FIT now supports 19 Community Health Worker positions and operates a variety of programs focusing on people with serious mental illness (FIT Wellness); providing Medication for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD) prior to release and direct connection to services upon release (FIT Recovery); and lead the North Carolina Technical Assistance Center (NC-TAC), a statewide technical assistance team focused on reentry, harm reduction, jail-based MOUD and law enforcement diversion/deflection.
Pictured are NC FIT founder and director Evan Ashkin, MD (UNC Family Medicine faculty who also works with our Federally Qualified Health Center partners at Piedmont Health), and Manager of NC FIT's Community Health Workers Tommy Green, who works with patients at Orange County Health Department, NC.