Our work to strengthen overdose prevention efforts, support harm reduction and address substance use continued with the creation of new tools, partnerships and learning opportunities.
Strengthening Overdose Prevention
We created a roadmap to help address overdose response and linkage to care, as well as a toolkit to inform public safety-led, community-oriented overdose prevention efforts to advance the work of health departments in overdose prevention planning and response. We also finalized a report on overdose prevention and response in community corrections and its companion environmental scan, created a resource for establishing peer support services for overdose response and hosted a virtual event with The Office of National Drug Control Policy’s (ONDCP) Director Dr. Rahul Gupta about the overdose crisis.
Advancing Harm Reduction
We led a year-long Project ECHO (learning community) to enhance the use of medications for addiction treatment in CCBHCs. We also developed a harm reduction stakeholder analysis, created a guide for supporting telehealth and technology-assisted services for people who use drugs that was shared with more than 3,200 partners and delivered a treatment toolkit on oral health, mental health and substance use treatment to support increased coordination and integration in communities nationwide.
Preventing Youth Substance Use
We continued to support youth-focused service providers in their work to prevent youth substance use through “Getting Candid,” our initiative with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). We created a message guide and interactive toolkit to help providers increase the prevalence and effectiveness of prevention conversations with youth; developed a Cannabis Resource Center that offers tools and messaging for educating youth about cannabis, along with a corresponding suite of youth-facing resources; and hosted a series of evidence-based learning events.
Addressing Alcohol and Tobacco Use
We engaged more than 483,000 people through our National Behavioral Health Network for Tobacco and Cancer Control technical assistance offerings and created an implementation toolkit for state tobacco control programs. A highlight of the year was hosting a virtual event with the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s (NIAAA) Director Dr. George Koob to bring attention to alcohol use disorder in America.
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