We had quite a few of our coalition members attend Fall Conference in St. George, Utah. The conference was held Sept. 22nd - Sept. 24th.Highlights of the trip included excellent workshops, 80 degree sunny weather, and unlimited waffles each morning at the hotel breakfast!
In the comments you will find a brief report from each member who attended, including:
1. A short list of valuable information learned at the conference.
2. 1 to 3 ideas, from the list, that the reporting member would like to help inplement into coalition activities.
Enjoy the reports!
5 comments:
Melissa Bates’ Report
2010 Fall Conference
What I learned:
1. The field of substance abuse prevention will be very closely related to mental illness prevention in the coming years. It was made very clear from the workshops and keynote speakers that substance abuse prevention is moving in this direction.
2. Risk factors for substance abuse and mental illness are pretty much the same.
3. Much is being done in the field of substance abuse prevention, while little to none has been done in the field of mental illness prevention.
What I would like to implement into our SMART strategies:
I think we have done a good job aligning our strategies with our county’s risk factors, and this conference has reinforced the importance of this to me. As we continue to develop and implement more and more strategies, I would like to see us continue to make sure that each strategy we implement is targeted to directly decrease risk factors/increase protective factors that are specific to our county.
Stephanie Bennion's Report
Valuable information learned at the conference
•Mental health and substance abuse are moving in the direction of becoming more unified
•MH & SA are moving towards prevention and more money will be spent on this area in the future.
•There are treatment centers in Utah that have gone tobacco-free and have had great success. They’re perfect examples and leaders to the rest of Utah in the movement to treat tobacco use in MS/SA facilities.
Things I would like to help implement into coalition activities:
•I can support the SA/MH shift to prevention by using my knowledge of and experience in public health program planning in coalition assessments, interventions, and evaluation.
•I can use my knowledge of tobacco cessation to promote more successful long-term recovery among those who abuse alcohol and prescription drugs.
Casey Christopherson's Report:
Valuable information learned at
the conference:
From the Justice Price-He mentioned that we need to focus on research based sanctions. He also stated that longer incarcerations do not reduce recidivism rates. He also mentioned that the research supports that drug courts do reduce recidivism and result in a cost savings. For every $1 spent, $6 is saved down the road.
Another theme I kept hearing was the need to focus our energies on prevention. I was appalled to hear that only 4% of expenditures are spent on prevention. Another theme I kept hearing was the need to coordinate better between agencies and systems.
Lastly, I totally loved the speaker, Kevin McCauley. He described how addictions have been stigmatized over the last 100 years and how they became separate from the medical disorders and diseases. Very interesting.
•Identify 1 to 3 ideas, from the list, that you would like to help implement into coalition activities:
1) Ben Tucker mentioned The Rocky Mountain IDA (or HIDA). It sounded like they are kind of doing what we are and I wondered if we could coordinate with them and not do redundant work. Similar topic related to the "take back" events. I recently have seen several other agencies and such promoting those events, but they seem different than the ones we are promoting. Again, I wonder if we could coordinate to reduce redundancy and strengthen what we are doing. Kind of the work smarter not harder idea...
2) With the idea of coordination, I have thought of several agencies/individuals who may benefit from being a part of our coalition and we would benefit from them. I am going to invite them to some of the upcoming coalition meetings and try to get them involved.
3) Lastly, I am going to get a copy of two of the books that Kevin McCauley mentioned (one of them is his book) and read them. I found the things he talked about and how this created the stigma associated with addiction to be fascinating!
Seanna Williams' Report:
The continuum of care presentations were great for not just treatment potential, but the fact that the medical providers will become an integral part of the treatment team. There were concerns that docs wouldn't understand all the tx aspects, but if we get them educated before hand, all this will just be second nature to them when one of their patients is in treatment. Also, the biggest thing is we need energy. I am asking someone (Zach Wooden) to be on the coalition..he is 24 years old but is the director of Clear Living treatment and an addict in recovery. He has TONS of ideas and energy. Also, we need Donnie. He can only come Monday mornings and we are on for Tuesday. We need his energy, his dedication and the fact that he apparently knows everyone in the united states. Donnie and Zach are a nice mix of prevention and treatment and between the two of them, have the resources and credibility to work with anyone anytime and to really get our message out. Ultimately, the docs who need training for prescribing are a huge thing, but it's the joe average person who needs to be invested and in charge of the pills hitting the street from their medicine cabinet. There was a comment made at the conference that the field is becoming professionalized and that there are fewer and fewer providers in recovery themselves...I think this applies to the coalition as well. The coalition needs to hear from those of us in recovery on what really works and what doesn't pertaining to prevention and how we ended up getting stuff from doctors and all of it.
Marcee Young's Report
As a new member of the coalition and new to substance abuse research in general, I came away from the Fall Conference with so many new insights and thoughts. Most of them are probably not new to most members of the coalition, but they gave me a new perspective. Here are just a few of them:
1)Drug courts not only provide the necessary treatment convicted substance abusers need in order to become sober and stay out of jail, they are cheaper than incarceration and probation in the long run. Save lives and money! The focus of the “War on Drugs” has only resulted in billions of dollars spent and full jails and prisons. By providing the unique probation and treatment that drug courts offer, the addiction is actually treated rather than simply being punished.
2)In the new Healthcare Reform bill, substance abuse and mental health treatment will be integrated into PRIMARY CARE for the first time in history. This is a huge step in having addiction recognized as an illness rather than a character flaw.
3)Out of all college students who didn’t drink alcohol in highs school, 25% of those begin to drink their first year of college. Nationally, going to college is a risk of abusing alcohol. The norm of underage drinking must be challenged in order to reduce the abuse.
4)According to the SHARP survey and other research, parental involvement is highly correlated to teenage abstinence from alcohol and drugs. However, in regards to alcohol, most parents have “the talk” with their children two years too late as many first try alcohol in 6th grade. Programs like Parents Empowered are key to educating parents about being involved with their children and setting clear guidelines and consequences.
I came away with a few insights about what SMART is doing and what we can implement:
1)At the Prevention forum I sat in on a discussion about creating a statewide network of coalitions. The importance behind this network would be to have more people and organizations behind legislation advocacy. Two or more coalitions who feel strongly about some type of legislation could get their legislators involved so there would be greater support to pass it. I think this is great idea and I took more notes about how this could be implemented.
2)Almost all the prevention discussed at the conference was geared toward schools and youth. I think that is wonderful and it appears that it is being done well. I was left wondering what is being done in prevention geared toward adults. I know our coalition is doing a lot as far as provider education is concerned as well as the media campaign that focuses on the entire community. I think that we should continue on this route and not get too distracted with working in schools since there is already a lot of work being done there by other organizations.
3)In a workshop about prevention on college campuses, one of the most effective strategies for prevention is provide entrance screening for all incoming Freshman and counseling for those that are at risk for substance abuse or are currently substance abusers. Is this being done at our state universities? I think that advocating for legislation for this type of program on campus would be a very effective prevention tool.
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