Owen Murray, MA, MS, LMFT

Project Manager, Northeast Node of the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network, Center for Technology and Behavioral Health, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth

Owen Murray, MA, MS, LMFT is currently a project manager at the Northeast Node of the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network supporting implementation of best clinical practice for providing medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD). He previously served as an office-based opioid treatment (OBOT) clinician where he supported prescribers who treat patients for opioid use disorder (OUD) within the Hub and Spoke system of Vermont. He provided behavioral treatment, service coordination, and program development in the offices of several medication-assisted treatment (MAT) prescribers for patients with OUD, often with other substance use disorders and/or co-occurring mental health and biomedical conditions. In the course of this work, Owen provided individual and group psychotherapy for OUD, other substance use disorders, and tobacco cessation. He initiated multi-agency partnerships between MOUD providers at different levels of care, including primary care, specialist OBOT clinics, daily dosing opioid treatment programs, and residential rehabilitation centers. Owen also developed partnerships between MOUD providers and providers of services related to criminal justice, child protection, employment, pediatric care, infectious disease treatment, senior services, economic services, housing, sober housing, and peer recovery supports. Owen distributed naloxone overdose reversal medication to high-risk individuals and trained them and their collateral supports in response to overdose. While participating on the Windsor Co. VT Drug Task Force, Owen facilitated a panel of first responders, hospital executives, the emergency department (ED) director, and MOUD providers to develop a protocol for bringing people who overdosed to an ED for stabilization, medication bridge treatment, and transitional services to ongoing MOUD care.

As an instructor and educator, Owen has conducted trainings for MOUD prescribers on group therapy and team-based care and has trained newly hired clinical staff on the specific requirements of Vermont OBOT spoke providers. Prior to working as a clinician, Owen was a university level language instructor living in Japan, New Zealand, Qatar, and Indonesia where he taught, wrote textbooks, and designed an Associates Degree program curriculum in English Language. Owen grew up in Vermont and loves the woods and hills of New England.