Resource Library

Have COVID-19 and social distancing thrown you into the unfamiliar world of virtual meetings as the only way to connect? While there are plenty of tips and tricks circulating about how to make your virtual meetings more effective, this webinar will teach you how to make them more equitable by leading with love, nurturing networks and relationships, and managing power dynamics.

During the first eight months of 2020, police in the U.S killed 164 Black people. This unbridled violence by law enforcement, combined with the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, lay bare the deadly effects of institutional racism on the health of our communities and force us to examine how racist policies contribute to inequitable health outcomes.

This year’s virtual conference, convened by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Bureau of Substance Addiction Services (BSAS) with support from the Center for Strategic Prevention Support (CSPS), offered prevention practitioners from across the Commonwealth an opportunity to examine our role in perpetuating these inequities and explore potential solutions.

Specifically, participants explored:

• How racism and racist drug policies affect health outcomes
• How the power dynamics present in our communities affect our prevention work, and how we can influence these dynamics
• Ways to restore or develop relationships with community partners, and reimagine what community-led engagement might look like
• Ways to apply a social justice and racial equity lens to our substance misuse prevention work.

The 3-day virtual event included a combination of plenaries, breakout workshops, and panel discussion. Participants were also invited to join optional networking and debrief sessions at the start and end of each conference day.

Attendance from all BSAS funded prevention grantees/programs was mandatory as a condition of funding. Funded programs were represented by the coordinator(s) from the lead cluster community (MOAPC and SAPC) or a designated representative were they not be able to attend.

Plenary Session Recordings

• Full plenary session: https://youtu.be/ymoDSzUzWlU
• Presentation by Dr. Flojaune Cofer (Keynote): https://youtu.be/OMv4YgHJk6s
• Presentation by Dr. Vanessa Hintz (Power Dynamics): https://youtu.be/rTizrVuZO3o
• Presentation by Dr. Obari Cartman (Community Engagement): https://youtu.be/zGZaC5BIrcA
• Presentation by Makani Themba (Social Justice/Practices): https://youtu.be/BII4PY-kbI0
• "Ecologies of Acknowledgment" by Sarah Kanouse: https://vimeo.com/354699007
• "White Privilege" by Kyla Jenée Lacey: https://youtu.be/Qkz5UmXugzk

Workshop Session Recordings

• Power Dynamics (Vanessa Hintz and Albert Gay): https://youtu.be/DdKM2oB3RI0
• Community Engagement (Obari Cartman): https://youtu.be/Jljm0FFfRH0
• Social Justice/Practices (Makani Themba and LaShonda Williamson-Jennings): https://youtu.be/xZPTXhAEuyQ

PowerDynamics WkShop slides can be viewed here: https://prezi.com/view/jCpPYmhz8GBbktZ53x2e/

Closing Session Recording

• Closing: https://youtu.be/AQKpDmDMH0I​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

In efforts to advance health equity, aligning with groups working toward racial justice can yield power and improve effectiveness; however, alignment is no simple task. It takes effort and intentionality. This brief concept paper outlines a rationale and five strategic opportunities for building bridges between the fields.

This resource list was developed by the PTTC Culturally & Linguistically Appropriate Practices Work Group, and represents a compilation of resources produced by the PTTC Network to help individuals understand the impact of culture and identity in prevention efforts. All resources are free to access. This list is by no means exhaustive, and will be updated periodically to ensure it has the most relevant resources.

This toolkit helps in developing a plan for enhancing leadership and its core tasks.

This primer provides clear guidelines to help your coalition build the capacity needed to develop and carry out a comprehensive community plan to reduce substance abuse rates. It describes the components of a coherent plan related to your coalition’s strategies and priorities for capacity building.

The CASEL Guide can be a valuable resource for educational leaders and teams aspiring to implement research-based approaches to promote students’ social-emotional development and academic performance. The CASEL Guide provides a systematic framework for evaluating the quality of classroom-based social and emotional learning programs and applies this framework to rate and identify well-designed, evidence-based SEL programs with potential for broad dissemination to schools across the United States.

The Collaboration Assessment Tool helps individuals and coalitions identify specific strengths and areas of growth and enables partnerships to subsequently establish a baseline and gauge their progress via periodic checks on domains of effective collaboration.

Collaboration Multiplier is an interactive tool for strengthening collaborative efforts across diverse fields. A multi-field approach has proven vital for tackling today’s complex social challenges. Whether the goal is promoting health equity, strengthening local economies, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, or enhancing community safety, improving our well-being requires community-wide changes that include strengthening government policies and the practices of key organizations. Multi-field collaboration expands available resources, strategies, and capabilities to achieve outcomes that could not be accomplished by one field alone.

This video shows how HBCUs, as well as other institutions that primarily serve students from a distinct background, region, or culture, can create prevention strategies to meet the unique needs of those students.

This guide shows how HBCUs, as well as other institutions that primarily serve students from a distinct background, region, or culture, can create prevention strategies to meet the unique needs of those students.

This guide highlights steps taken by the Frostburg State University community to reduce underage and high-risk drinking among the student population and discusses how these strategies were implemented.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health developed this booklet in collaboration with representatives from Native American communities in Massachusetts. This booklet explores ways family members can help prevent youth drinking and other drug use. Values and images from Native American communities are interwoven with the best we know about the prevention of substance use. It includes a list of resources for positive cultural activities, as well as counseling for youth and adults.

Communications that promote interest and encourage involvement.

This toolkit distills key concepts and evidence-based strategies into short, easy-to-read sections; offers interactive activities to help you to understand how these concepts relate to your community’s work in substance abuse prevention; and provides tips, exercises, and worksheets that will guide you to apply what you are learning to the context of your community.

To download a PDF of just the content text from the interactive toolkit as well as the individual worksheets, click on the links below: