Resource Library

This website from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council provides archived webinars from their Substance Use in Massachusetts: Regional Pathways to Prevention and Recovery Webinar Series as well as additional resources of interest to municipalities such as state and federal data sets and other resources to address the opioid epidemic and to prevent substance misuse among youth and adults.

Alcohol remains the number one substance used by young people. These 24 legal policy summaries allow you to track how your state regulates underage drinking as compared to other states in order to help inform your prevention work.

10: A Guide for Building a Sustainable and Resilient Collaboration unpacks the concepts of sustainability and resilience and shares ideas, stories and resources that will benefit collaborations as they consider them.

Sustainability involves many factors, including leadership, funding, community engagement, and the ability to influence policy and systems that lead to program or a collective impact. These factors fall under four main categories: people (who to involve), resources (the investment required), process (the why of the collaboration), and impact (the effect/influence and telling the story).

Resilience is about building a collaboration’s capacity to shift, adapt, and change, and is also focused on the overall health and well-being of the collaboration and the community.

54th New England School of Addiction and Prevention Studies - June 5 - 8, 2023

Live Program at Worcester State University , Worcester, MA and Virtual Program

To inspire their youth, the Native American Team of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Bureau of Substance Addiction Services gathered stories and poems that highlight their culture. Images from Native American communities are interwoven with the LifeSkills Training© (LST) concepts that can help prevent youth drinking and other drug use. While this book resonates with Native American youth, every student can benefit from the teachings that have existed for thousands of years. It includes tips for teachers to use to guide positive discussions, as well as referral resources.

Note: A free one-day LifeSkills Training session is required to order and use this free resource. A Circle Tied to Mother Earth is a supplement to the LifeSkills Training and will not replace any of the other LifeSkills materials.

The PTTC Network's Building Health Equity & Social Justice Working Group developed this resource for prevention professionals. The overall goal is to incorporate anti-racist, bias-free, and inclusive terminology into the framework of prevention efforts. Diversity and inclusion in the prevention workforce is both ethical and imperative. Preventionists must not only be aware of the knowledge presented throughout this factsheet but be able to practically apply the information given.

As you create programs, information resources, collaborate with key partners, and develop presentations, look to integrate the information within this resource into your work. With the practical application of this terminology, prevention professionals can help guide their organizations towards a culture of inclusion as we work towards healthy equity.

A Practitioner's Guide for Advancing Health Equity is designed to help public health practitioners advance health equity through community prevention strategies. While health disparities can be addressed at multiple levels, this guide focuses on policy, systems, and environmental improvements designed to improve the places where people live, learn, work, and play. It is designed for those who are new to the concept of health equity, as well as those who are already working to create equitable environments.

This document is intended to support substance use prevention stakeholders in improving their cultural competency and capacity to serve minority and vulnerable populations. It was created through a literature review of recent academic journal publications and evidence-based resource databases.

Reading scientific articles (sometimes referred to as peer-reviewed articles, journal articles, or scientific papers) can be both intimidating and challenging. However, by approaching articles strategically, prevention professionals can glean a great deal of information from scientific papers or journal articles. Learning how to decipher a journal article is crucial for substance misuse prevention professionals, especially during their work on Step 3 (Planning) of the Strategic Prevention Framework. Actions to complete in this step include identifying evidence-based interventions for implementation that are a good conceptual and practical fit. At times, prevention professionals will need to read journal articles to review the research completed on interventions to determine whether an intervention is an appropriate fit for their community and has sufficient evidence of effectiveness to meet local or state standards of evidence.

This document is a compilation of resources to assist prevention professionals in enhancing their understanding of peer-reviewed journal articles. Topics covered include what “peer-reviewed” means, the purpose of each section of an article, step-by-step instructions on how to read an article, and types of study designs.

This five-part training series is a follow-up to a recent webinar conducted by Alan Vietze and Bill Reay focused on serving children and youth with emotional and behavioral health challenges. In this five-part series, participants will delve in more depth into the key aspects of a responsive framework to effectively care for this population of children and youth. The series will cover:

• the initial steps to fully understand the population of children and youth and their needs which will include cluster analysis and clinical constellations;
• examining this information in partnership with youth, parents, and other key stakeholders to develop interventions/programs based on the findings;
• funding and infrastructure;
• and examining out-of-home treatment and developing what is needed.

Cross-sector data sharing and integration transform information about individuals into actionable intelligence that can be used to understand community needs, improve services, and build stronger communities. Yet, use of cross-sector data can also reinforce legacies of racist policies and produce inequitable resource allocation, access, and outcomes. A Toolkit for Centering Racial Equity Throughout Data Integration describes positive and problematic practices for centering racial equity across the six stages of the data life cycle.

This resource provides an example template and example that coalitions can use to develop an action plan for strategy implementation or other prevention activities.

Power imbalances and structural oppression — including racism, patriarchy, capitalism, and others — are the root causes of health inequities. These forces work together to maintain the current conditions that keep many of us from accessing the collective resources we need to thrive and live free and healthy lives.

Because the imbalance of power in our society is the most upstream cause of the inequities we seek to change, it’s also the most impactful site for intervention. This suite of resources builds on foundations provided in its preceding sister resource, Set 1: Resources for Collaboration and Power Sharing Between Government Agencies and Community Power-Building Organizations. It is designed for governmental health employees to dive into power: what it is, who holds it, and how to leverage and redistribute it to create more equitable and healthy communities. Health departments can engage with these resources internally and in conjunction with community power-building organization (CPBO) partners and collaborators at other government agencies.

 

This guide focuses on research supporting adaptations of evidence-based practices (EBPs) for under-resourced populations. Adaptations involve tailoring care, programs, and services to the cultural, social, gender, and demographic contexts of the people served to yield positive outcomes.

This tool is designed to help prevention practitioners better understand where and how to focus efforts to prevent overdose deaths. Specifically, it provides an overview of:

• Risk factors associated with opioid overdose;
• Evidence-based strategies for overdose prevention; and
• Challenges specific to implementing harm reduction strategies.