Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery (CARA) Grant
The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery (CARA) Grant is a 4-year, $3.2 million grant was awarded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to the VCU Center for Trauma and Critical Care Education and the VCU Injury and Violence Prevention Program (IVPP). This will fund three major initiatives.
- Increase diversity of EMS workforce.
- Provide access to EMS education to underserved areas.
- Bolster EMS training programs with additional information on public health, addiction, response to substance abuse, mental health, domestic and intimate partner violence, and patient motivational interviewing.
Why we are doing this in part because:
The diversity of the EMS workforces does not reflect the diversity of the population served, with females and professionals belonging to minority racial/ethnic groups continuing to remain underrepresented in EMS as compared to the US population (Crowe et al., 2020). For example, between 2008 and 2017, EMS professionals identifying as black remain near 5% for EMT and 3% for paramedic nationally (Crowe et al., 2020).
Virginia Rural EMS Training Collaborative and EMS Medical Provider Training Supplemental Grants
This grant allows the CTCCE to help provide prehospital provider training courses across rural EMS areas of Virginia and to help rural pre-hospital providers and agencies with training. Additionally, this grant is allowing the CTCCE to develop a hybrid-AEMT curriculum and train providers to screen for the presence of violence and to use patient motivational interviewing skills to improve patient care.