Colorado Awards $12 Million in Opioid Settlement Grants to 27 Organizations Across the State

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has announced $12 million in grants to 27 organizations across the state, marking the largest and most competitive funding round to date from the state's opioid settlement funds. The grants, awarded through the Department of Law's Resilient Colorado Grant program, will support community-led solutions spanning prevention, youth treatment, workforce development, reentry services, and family support.

The announcement comes as Colorado continues to invest its share of national opioid litigation settlements—totaling more than $912 million secured since Weiser took office—into evidence-based programs that address the ongoing opioid crisis at the community level.

Record Demand for Funding

The scale of need revealed by this grant round is striking. The Department of Law received 287 applications requesting more than $171 million—more than 14 times the available funding. This overwhelming response underscores both the depth of the opioid crisis in Colorado communities and the critical role that settlement funds play in sustaining local services.

"Colorado's opioid settlement funds are helping us build a comprehensive response to the opioid crisis grounded in evidence, accountability, and collaboration," said Attorney General Weiser. "These grants are part of a broader portfolio of investments that supports local leadership, strengthens statewide infrastructure, and expands prevention, treatment, recovery, and peer support across Colorado."

Six Priority Areas for Investment

The $12 million in grants is distributed across six strategic categories, each addressing a specific gap in Colorado's continuum of care:

Youth Prevention and Well-Being

Six organizations received funding to build protective factors among young people through mentoring, family support, and culturally responsive programming:

• Harmony Acres Equestrian Center ($210,000): Expands peer mentoring and resilience programs that help youth build protective factors against future substance misuse through equine-assisted activities.

• Mosaic Unlimited ($265,000): Uses evidence-based parenting education and family support to reduce substance use risk among children of formerly incarcerated and teen fathers.

• Tepeyac Community Health Center ($625,000): Launches a culturally and linguistically tailored prevention program serving Hispanic and Latino youth and families in Denver's Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea neighborhoods.

• Trail Lamp Youth Services/Business Art Mentorship ($300,000): Provides arts-based mentoring, leadership development, and prevention programming for youth facing elevated risk factors.

• Vuela for Health ($460,000): Delivers culturally responsive mental health and prevention programming that strengthens resilience among Spanish-speaking youth and families.

• YMCA of Metropolitan Denver ($535,000): Expands after-school programming that builds resilience, social-emotional skills, and healthy decision-making for youth in under-resourced Aurora neighborhoods.

Youth Treatment Services

Four grants target the significant gap in substance use treatment specifically designed for adolescents:

• Antelope Recovery LLC ($380,000): Expands trauma-informed outpatient and intensive outpatient treatment, family therapy, and Spanish-language services for adolescents, particularly in rural communities and for justice-involved youth.

• Colorado FullCircle Recovery Centers ($535,000): Expands peer-led recovery services, support groups, sober activities, recovery navigation, and internships for youth across five Colorado recovery centers.

• University of Colorado Denver ($295,000): Expands one of the nation's first pediatric addiction consult services, connecting youth and families to treatment during hospital and emergency department visits.

• YouthZone ($220,000): Provides screening, counseling, restorative justice, family education, and recovery navigation for rural and justice-involved youth on the Western Slope.

Rural and Underserved Workforce Development

Four grants focus on building the behavioral health workforce in areas that struggle to attract and retain qualified providers:

• Catholic Health Initiatives Colorado (Mercy Hospital) ($400,000): Develops behavioral health career pathways and paid internships to strengthen the workforce serving youth and families in southwest Colorado.

• Colorado Perinatal Care Quality Collaborative ($175,000): Expands training that equips health care providers to deliver compassionate, evidence-based care for pregnant and postpartum people with substance use disorders statewide.

• Delta County Memorial Hospital District ($700,000): Creates a structured behavioral health career pathway to strengthen addiction treatment services in rural western Colorado.

• SummitStone Health Partners ($405,000): Builds rural behavioral health capacity by training bilingual prevention specialists and expanding mobile harm reduction services.

Reentry and Justice-Involved Recovery

Six organizations received funding to support individuals transitioning from incarceration to community, a population at extremely high risk for overdose:

• Community Anchor Academy ($525,000): Expands peer-led recovery coaching, workforce training, and employment pathways for justice-involved individuals in El Paso, Pueblo, and Teller counties.

• Friendly Harbor Community Center ($370,000): Expands peer support services by connecting participants to treatment, housing, employment, transportation, and recovery resources.

• Health Solutions ($630,000): Increases access to medication-assisted treatment, telehealth, and recovery supports while expanding the behavioral health workforce in Pueblo, Huerfano, and Las Animas counties.

• Larimer County Sheriff's Office ($600,000): Creates a coordinated jail-to-community recovery system with peer support and reentry planning to reduce overdose risk and improve long-term recovery outcomes.

• Recovery Cafe Longmont ($405,000): Expands peer-led recovery and reentry services while growing Colorado's culturally responsive peer workforce.

• Rooted 303 ($235,000): Expands wraparound recovery services, housing support, medication-assisted treatment, and family counseling for individuals reentering Denver communities after incarceration.

• Stout Street Foundation ($575,000): Increases long-term residential recovery services for justice-involved individuals through peer mentorship, workforce training, and evidence-based treatment.

Family and Caregiver Support

Two grants recognize that supporting parents in recovery strengthens entire families:

• Illuminate Colorado ($650,000): Expands free childcare for parents receiving substance use treatment and peer support programs that strengthen families in recovery.

• Invest in Kids ($530,000): Strengthens trauma-informed support statewide for young children and caregivers affected by substance use through evidence-based home visiting and parent-child interventions.

Peer Leadership and Workforce Sustainability

Four grants invest in the peer recovery specialist workforce that has proven effective in engaging people with lived experience:

• Colorado Providers Association ($420,000): Strengthens Colorado's behavioral health workforce by expanding peer specialist credentialing, statewide workforce resources, and support for rural, BIPOC, and justice-involved professionals.

• Serenity Recovery Connection ($625,000): Expands Colorado's peer recovery workforce through no-cost training, paid internships, career navigation, and advanced peer coaching pathways.

• The Family Center/La Familia ($380,000): Expands culturally competent peer recovery and prevention services for Latino and Hispanic individuals and families in Larimer County.

• Yarrow Collective ($550,000): Expands peer support training, mentorship, and education to strengthen Colorado's recovery workforce, particularly in rural and underserved communities.

Geographic Reach

The selected projects will serve communities across every region of Colorado, from the Denver metro area to rural Western Slope counties, from the Eastern Plains to Southern Colorado border communities. This statewide distribution reflects a deliberate strategy to ensure that both urban centers with concentrated need and rural areas with limited resources benefit from settlement investments.

Part of a Coordinated Statewide Strategy

This grant round represents the fourth funding opportunity supported through the state share of Colorado's opioid settlement funds, which accounts for 10% of total settlement dollars under the Colorado Opioid Settlement Memorandum of Understanding. The remaining 90% is distributed through 19 Regional Opioid Abatement Councils and the Colorado Opioid Abatement Council's infrastructure share.

This layered approach—combining state-directed investments with regional decision-making—allows Colorado to address both statewide priorities and local needs simultaneously.

Impact for Families Seeking Help

For Colorado families navigating addiction, these grants translate into tangible improvements in access and quality of care:

• More youth treatment options: Adolescents will have access to specialized outpatient and intensive outpatient services, family therapy, and recovery support designed specifically for their developmental needs.

• Culturally responsive care: Spanish-speaking families, Latino communities, and other underserved populations will find services delivered in their language and grounded in their cultural context.

• Support during critical transitions: People leaving incarceration will have coordinated reentry services that reduce the risk of fatal overdose during the first weeks of release—a period of extreme vulnerability.

• Family-centered approaches: Parents in treatment can access childcare and parenting support, removing barriers that often cause people to leave treatment prematurely.

• Peer support expansion: More certified peer recovery specialists will be available to provide mentorship and navigation support based on lived experience.

Looking Ahead

The Department of Law has already opened applications for the next funding opportunity—the Community-Rooted Opioid Response Grant—seeking organizations for community-driven projects that reduce substance use impacts and overdose risk in disproportionately affected communities. Priority goes to organizations created by and for the communities they serve.

With $912 million in total settlements secured and years of payments still to come, Colorado is positioned to sustain these investments over the long term. For families currently seeking help, the Colorado Department of Human Services maintains a treatment locator and crisis services at 1-844-493-TALK (8255), available 24/7 to connect callers with local resources and support.