Drughelp.care

 Memorandum

 

To: Cuyahoga County Department of Public Safety and Justice Services

 

From: Miyuki Fukushima, Professor of Criminology and Sociology

           

            Patricia Stoddard-Dare, Professor of Social Work

 

Subject: Budgets for the second year of funding

 

Date: September 16, 2025

 

Total Requested Budget: $199,722

 

 

Organizational Capacity: Cleveland State University (CSU) is a state-controlled institution of higher education with 17,000-plus students, ten colleges and schools, and more than 175 academic programs, located at the heart of Cleveland and serving the community since 1964. Professors Patricia Stoddard-Dare of School of Social Work and Miyuki Fukushima Tedor of Department of Criminology and Sociology at CSU are uniquely qualified to implement the proposed project because of their expertise in substance abuse issues as both instructors and researchers and the various resources and full support they receive from CSU.

 

Period of Performance: The team of researchers at Cleveland State University are committed to implement the proposed project through the duration of funding period (9.1.25 – 8.31.26).

 

Scope of Work: A team led by Professors Patricia Stoddard-Dare and Miyuki Fukushima Tedor at CSU developed a web app, drughelp.care, in the fall of 2018 to improve access to drug treatment services, reduce wait times, and better ensure that individuals get the help they need. The app allows substance abuse treatment agencies to log the services they provide and quickly and easily update their available treatment slots and wait time on a daily basis. The app offers a centralized system for substance use treatment provider agencies to share information on their treatment options that allows anyone to instantaneously identify local treatment facilities that have availability at any given moment in time. This innovative web app attempts to improve efficiency in service delivery within substance abuse treatment community.

 

Currently 122  substance abuse treatment agencies have registered 1,184 unique programs to drughelp.care and are updating daily the availability and wait time of 132 assessment, 154 outpatient, 189 intensive outpatient, 30 partial hospitalization, 54 clinically managed residential, 22 medically monitored inpatient, and 46 sober living programs. The numbers in parentheses show the change from the second-year proposal. For each of these 1,184 programs, agencies provided detailed information on evidence-based interventions, medically assisted treatment, dual

 

 

diagnosis care specialties, accepted form of payment/insurance, eligibility criteria, focusses and accommodations, and additional services (see Appendix A for a detailed list).

 

The website is fully searchable, allowing treatment providers, first responders, individuals seeking treatment to find available services that match their needs at the click of a button. During the most current month between September 1, 2024 through August 31, 2025, 14,135 unique viewers visited and made 25,940-page views on drughelp.care.

 

Our needs assessment study conducted in the fall of 2017 found that substance users and their family members are often left on their own to look up treatment facilities and must engage in a time-consuming, and often fruitless, task of contacting each provider agency in the hope that one of them can offer an assessment and appropriate treatment immediately. Research is clear that many substance users experience a short window of time when they are willing to engage in treatment voluntarily[1]; thus, this difficulty can be a substantial roadblock to recovery. The difficulty in finding an available substance abuse treatment facility also prevents others who come in contact with substance users from connecting substance users with available treatment, including law enforcement officers, social workers, and medical/emergency personnel[2].

 

Therefore, establishing linkage to care is an important component to solve the opioid epidemic, reduce overdoses, and promote recovery. Technology like drughelp.care can help establish a linkage to care and improve efficiency in service delivery. Follow up yearly with registered agencies to make sure that the information on drughelp.care is up to date.

 

Method of accountability: Cleveland State University and the team members for this project will meet financial reporting requirements, including, but not limited to monthly expenditure reports, project evaluation reports, and corrective action plans for both fiscal and programmatic challenges as necessary.

 

Itemized Budget and Justification:

 

A.  Personnel

A. Personnel	Est. Hours	Rate		Total Cost
PI - Academic year	386	$62.06		$23,955
PI - Summer support	324.99	$61.43		$19,964
Co-PI - Summer support	71.5	$69.52		$4,971
Web developer	2,000	$15.00		$30,000
Registration specialists	1,666.67	$15.00		$25,000
Graphic designer	250	$15.00		$3,750
Total Direct Labor Cost				$107,641

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Justification

 

Principal Investigator– Miyuki Fukushima Tedor ($43,919): Professor Miyuki Fukushima Tedor is a co-creator of drughelp.care and Professor at Department of Criminology and Sociology at Cleveland State University. Professor Tedor will direct and oversee the operation of the entire project and manage the team, including hiring, training, and coordinating student and contract workers, developing and maintaining the website, ongoing research and evaluation of the outcomes of the program, and writing up reports for the project. Professor Tedor requests two 3-credit course release and 1.5-month summary salary to focus on the project. Professor Tedor has been working at CSU for 10 years. She has written a number of peer-reviewed publications and has managed several grants and a large group of students for the project.

 

Co-Principal Investigator– Patricia Stoddard-Dare ($4,971): Professor Patricia Stoddard-Dare is the other co-creator of drughelp.care and professor of Social Work. She teaches Substance Abuse classes at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and serves as the co-coordinator of the Chemical Dependency Counseling Certificate Program. Professor Stoddard-Dare will also direct and oversee the operation of the project and manage the team and offer expertise where needed. Professor Stoddard-Dare requests 0.33 summer months salary for this project.

 

Web Developer ($30,000): Six engineering graduate students (@ $15 per hour for 10 hours per week) or three engineering graduate students (@ $15 per hour for 20 hours per week) to maintain the website, implement changes based on focus group studies, develop an app for first responders, embed educational messages, and a develop telemedicine platform.

 

Registration (and Community Outreach) Specialists ($25,000): Four to six students (@ $15 per hour for 10-15 hours per week each) will be trained and tasked with registering service provider agencies and harm reduction resources offered throughout Ohio, focusing on Cuyahoga County and its surrounding areas, to drughelp.care. Students will also assist the outreach consultant with the community outreach effort. Our preference is to hire graduate students who are working toward MSW degree. 

 

Student Graphic Designer ($3,750): One student (@ $15 per hour for 20 hours per week for 12.5 weeks) to meet with the team to create graphic designs for drughelp.care to design the user interface and create educational messages. 

 

B.  Fringe Benefits

B. Fringe Benefits	Quantity	Rate		Total Cost
Benefit Rate for faculty and staff		0.357500		$8,565
Benefit Rate for summer faculty		0.205000		$5,112
Benefit Rate for student		0.050000		$2,938
Total Fringe Benefits Cost				$16,614

 

Justification

 

Fringe benefit rate for faculty during academic year is 35.75% and during summer is 20.50%. Fringe benefit rate for students is 5.00%.

 

C. Travel                                                                      

 

C. Travel	Quantity	Rate		Total Cost
A.  Private local vehicle	1,000 miles	$0.58		$580
Total Travel Cost				$580

 

Justification

 

Project staff will be reimbursed at the current mileage rate of 58 cents per mile at Cleveland State’s mileage rate at the time the expense is incurred, not to exceed the IRS rate for the same, average 10 miles per visit for approximately 100 visits.

 

D. Equipment 

 

E. Supplies

             

E. Supplies	Quantity	Rate		Total Cost
AWS EC2	1 year	$500		$500
Flyers and outreach materials	4,000	$0.15		$600
Office supplies and on campus meeting support	1	$500		$500
Total Materials Cost				$1,600

 

Justification

 

An annual subscription to Amazon AWS EC2 to host the web application. The price is scaled and increases depending on the amount of traffic to the website (@$500 per year for t2.large instance).

 

Flyers and outreach materials: 4,000 @ $0.15 each (color) = $600.00

 

Office supplies and on campus meeting support including parking passes to park at CSU: $500

 

 

 

F.  Contractual

 

F. Contractual	Quantity	Unit Cost
A community outreach consultant	1,000	$40 per hour		$40,000
Total Contract Cost				$40,000

 

Justification

 

Community Outreach Consultant ($40,000): One consultant (@ $40 per hour for 20 hours per week) with connection with the substance abuse service provider community will help registration specialists with the registering process by introducing and connecting them with local agencies. The agency outreach consultant also will help coordinating focus group studies with care providers and other community stakeholders, train emergency medical services, public safety, community health workers, advise the team on improving the website, and manage other community outreach activates for the project. The primary responsibility is to be the liaison for the community stakeholders.  

 

G. Construction

 

H.  Other

 

I. Indirect

 

I. Indirect Cost	Base
Total Indirect Cost (20.00%)	$166,435	0.2000		$33,287

 

Justification

 

The indirect rate of 20.00% was applied to the total cost. The negotiated local/state indirect cost rate agreement for CSU is included under “Other Attachments”.

 

Total Direct and Indirect Cost: $199,722

 

 

 

Appendix A. List of Information for Each Program Collected by Each Agency for drughlep.care

 

 

Treatment types:

·       Assessment

·       Clinically managed residential

·       Intensive outpatient program

·       Medically monitored inpatient

·       Outpatient

·       Partial hospitalization

·       Sober living

 

Telehelath Services:

·       Telehealth available

 

Hours:

·       Intake hours

·       Walk in hours

·       Service hours

 

Interventions:

·       12-step program

·       Cognitive behavioral therapy

·       Dialectical behavioral therapy

·       Harm reduction

·       Interactive journaling

·       Motivational interviewing

·       Trauma-focused counseling

·       Contingency management therapy

 

Medically assisted treatment:

·       Acamprosate

·       Buprenorphine

·       Disulfuram

·       Methadone

·       Naltrexone

 

For each of the above medications, agencies asked to indicate if they:

·       Allow and facilitate prescription

·       Allow but do not facilitate prescription

·       Allow but encourage tapering

·       Do not allow

 

Dual diagnosis care and specialties:

·       Anxiety

·       Bipolar disorder

·       Depression

·       Eating disorders

·       Obsessive compulsive disorder

·       Schizophrenia & psychotic disorders

·       Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

·       Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

·       Personality disorders (Borderline, Antisocial, etc.)

 

Accepted insurances:

·       Uninsured

·       Criminal justice/court referral

·       Medicaid

·       Medicare

·       Private insurance

·       VA benefits

 

Gender:

·       Any gender

·       Male only

·       Female only

 

Eligibility criteria:

·       Pregnant females only

·       Pregnant females accepted

·       Only adults

·       Only minors

·       All ages

·       No sex offenders

·       Sex offender accepted

·       No arsonists

·       Arsonists accepted

·       Criminal justice clients only

·       Criminal justice clients accepted

·       CPS clients accepted

·       CPS clients only

 

Focuses and accommodations:

·       Transgender accommodated

·       Veterans focused

·       LGBTQ focused

·       LGBTQ friendly

·       No smoking

·       Smoking allowed

·       Accompanying minors permitted

·       Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) friendly

 

Additional services:

·       Applying for Medicaid

·        Birth control

·        Case management

·        Childcare

·        Compassionate prenatal care

·        EAP counseling

·        Employment training

·        Family support classes

·        HIV/Hepatitis testing

·        Home visit

·       Hospital visit

·        Housing assistance

·        In-Home school care

·       Jail visit

·        Language assistance

·        Legal assistance (ASL, Spanish, Chinese, and computer translation/interpretation)

·        Needle exchange

·        Obtaining ID

·        Obtaining Narcan

·        Peer recovery

·        Recovery meetings

·       Primary care doctor

·        Smoking cessation

·        Transportation assistance

·       Virtual visit

 

Prenatal care/Birth control:

·       Ask patients if they are pregnant

·       Ask patients if they are using birth control

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Prochaska, James O., Carlo C. DiClemente, and John C. Norcross. 1992. “In search of how people change: Applications to addictive behaviors.” American Psychologist, 47(9): 1102-1114.

 

[2] Leshner, Alan I. 1999. “Science-based views of drug addiction and its treatment.” JAMA, 282(14): 1314-1316.