Western Kentucky University has laid the groundwork this semester for a resource center dedicated to recovery.

It will offer support for students dealing with addiction and mental health challenges.

Our Laura Rogers has more from Bowling Green.

There's a need.

There's a need in the state of Kentucky.

There's a need nationally.

That need is offering support for college students suffering from substance use disorder.

A lot of our first time students have been away from home like they have when they come to college, and so there are a lot of opportunities to take some wrong steps when we're just leaving the house.

WKU is one of five universities in Kentucky to receive a $78,000 grant from the council on Post-secondary education to begin or enhance services through a collegiate recovery resource center.

And when someone walks into one of these resource centers, what they will find on the other end is somebody willing to lend their hand out saying, I'm here.

How can I help you?

What do you.

Need?

Kentucky's Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission gave CPE the grant money, part of $980 million.

Kentucky is set to receive over the course of several years.

These resource centers are a new way to help expand the resources available to young adults.

Athens Universities Kentucky has been severely impacted by the opioid crisis.

Everybody knows someone or has a family member who is struggling.

It can impact college students who arrive on campus with active addiction, or who get hooked for the very first time.

Whether it's anxiety for being away from home for the very first time, or the struggle with fitting into a social group for the first time.

Or maybe it's the stress of having really heavy academic demands that they've never had before.

Those stressors may cause anxiety that can lead students to cope with drugs and alcohol.

We have the age range of the highest youth on our campus.

Doctor Whitney Harper and the WKU Department of Social Work is coordinator of the new Collegiate Recovery Resource Center.

I can provide academic support, advising, support, registration, support so they have like the full continuum of services.

She has partners across campus, from health services to athletics and Greek Life, to refer students who may need recovery support.

We want to make sure that parents know that this is a safe space for their children when they're sending them off to college, and we also want students to feel like there's a place they can go.

They're not going to be judged, and we are going to be able to offer them real help to help.

She also has community partners and Journey Pure and Life Skills, who offer rehabilitation, peer support and treatment programs.

We wanted to make sure that there was a no wrong door approach, and so students who might be struggling with substance use and anxiety, substance use issues and depression, that when they come in seek support, they get that wraparound care.

They hope this care will keep students at risk of dropping out of college on the right track to graduation and career success.

Most of the time, it's not the academic challenges that cause them to drop out of school.

Most of the time, it's those social experiences of feeling like they don't fit in, that they don't belong or that they don't have an ally.

The center aims to be that ally on their recovery journey.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Laura Rogers.

Thank you.

Laura.

The other schools that receive the grant include Bellarmine, Campbellsville, Morehead, and the University of Kentucky.