COALITION NEWS
September events, resources, opportunities, & more.
Spanish Making the Connections Toolkit
Translated Materials:
Modules 1-8 of the Making the Connection Toolkit have been translated to Spanish. This includes the PowerPoint slides, facilitator notes, and toolkit guides.
Click here to access the toolkit.
Modules currently available in Spanish include:
- Making the Connection: Toxic Stress, Teen Brains, and Building Resilience
- ACEs, Toxic Stress, & Adversity
- Teen Brain Development
When Coping Costs: Adaptations with a Downside
Costs of Early Use: Marijuana & Cannabis Products
Vaping, E-cigs, and Marijuana
Revealing Resilience
Building Community: Resilience & Trauma-Informed Systems (For Adult Audiences)
Toolkit Overview:
The Making the Connection Toolkit helps youth and adults make the connection between ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), toxic stress, brain development, and substance use. The toolkit was designed for adults who work with, mentor, or care for youth ages 12-20 and want to create ongoing conversations and connections with youth.
The toolkit includes:
- Realistic examples
- Current science
- Engaging activities
The toolkit helps adults:
- Master the conversation about toxic stress, coping, and youth substance use
- Talk WITH youth instead of teaching AT them
- Guide youth to healthier coping skills and connection with people and resources
Once registered online, users receive access to all modules, slides, facilitator guides, and handouts.
The Making The Connection Toolkit is a part of the Youth Now Prevention Initiative, created by Prevent Coalition and ESD 112. Funding is provided through the Washington State Department of Health, dedicated Marijuana Funding.
Any day can be a Drug Take Back Day
MED-Project provides convenient free year-round medicine drop-off locations, such as pharmacies, medical facilities, and law enforcement offices. They also offer a free mail-back service where you can order prepaid postage envelopes to safely dispose of unused and expired medicine by mail.
- Community kiosk drop-off sites drop-off expired or unwanted medication for free and proper disposal at a convenient location near you.
- Mail-Back Services free of charge to all Washington residents upon request to dispose of expired or unwanted medication including inhalers and prefilled injector products.
Take-back programs are the only safe and proper way to dispose of unused and expired medication. Find out more at www.MED-Project.org.
You can make a difference in preventing opioid misuse and overdose
Opioids are now one of the leading causes of injury-related deaths in Washington State. More people die from overdose than from car crashes. The Starts with One campaign is designed to inform and educate young adults, their parents, and older adults about the dangers of prescription drug misuse and the importance of safe storage, use, and disposal. This campaign is funded by the Washington State Health Care Authority (HCA).
To learn more about what you can do or to find help for you or someone you know suffering from addiction to opioids go to www.GetTheFactsRX.com. Now is the time to get help. Programs are available across Washington state to help you live an opioid-free life.
New Article: Balancing Consideration of the Risks and Benefits of E-Cigarettes
Abstract:
The topic of e-cigarettes is controversial. Opponents focus on e-cigarettes’ risks for young people, while supporters emphasize the potential for e-cigarettes to assist smokers in quitting smoking. Most US health organizations, media coverage, and policymakers have focused primarily on risks to youths. Because of their messaging, much of the public—including most smokers—now consider e-cigarette use as dangerous as or more dangerous than smoking. By contrast, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine concluded that e-cigarette use is likely far less hazardous than smoking. Policies intended to reduce adolescent vaping may also reduce adult smokers’ use of e-cigarettes in quit attempts.
Because evidence indicates that e-cigarette use can increase the odds of quitting smoking, many scientists, including this essay’s authors, encourage the health community, media, and policymakers to more carefully weigh vaping’s potential to reduce adult smoking-attributable mortality.
We review the health risks of e-cigarette use, the likelihood that vaping increases smoking cessation, concerns about youth vaping, and the need to balance valid concerns about risks to youths with the potential benefits of increasing adult smoking cessation.
Live Vape Free Program Launched by Department of Health
This program is available for free and hosted by Optum, the Quitline service provider of 20+ years. When individuals join the program, they can access online content to prepare them to discuss vaping with teens, and even chat live with coaches at the Quitline.
- Tools to help empower constructive conversations about the risks associated with vaping
- Instructive videos as well as how-to articles and background information
- A guide to help teens build a quit plan. It will cover how to get started, strategies for managing urges, and staying quit
- Insights from individuals who are facing similar challenges
- The latest news and information about the health risks of vaping
Learn more at doh.wa.gov/livevapefree.
Read the Medium article.
Save the Date: October 23, 2021 DEA National Prescription Drug Take Back Day
What is DEA National Prescription Drug Take Back Day?
The National Prescription Drug Take Back Day was initiated by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in 2010 to address the public safety issue created by unused or expired prescription medications, which are highly susceptible to poisoning, misuse, abuse, and theft. The DEA’s Drug Take Back Day events provide an opportunity for Americans to safely and securely dispose of unused, expired, and unwanted prescription and over-the-counter medications and help prevent accidental poisonings, drug addiction and overdose deaths in our communities. Learn more at https://takebackday.dea.gov/
When is the next Take Back Day?
The 21st DEA National Prescription Drug Take Back Day is on Saturday, October 23, 2021 from 10am – 2pm. Local organizations and law enforcement across the nation will be hosting Drug Take Back Events in their communities to help residents properly dispose of unused and expired prescription and over-the-counter medication. These events are an opportunity to raise awareness about the dangers of opioid misuse as well as the importance for removing unused and expired prescription and nonprescription medication from the home–making community members safer, healthier, and more informed.
Will there be events in SW Washington for the October 23r Take Back Day?
Yes! Substance misuse prevention coalitions, law enforcement and community agencies across Clark, Skamania and Klickitat counties will host event sites for the October 23rd DEA National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. Details and locations are coming soon and will be made available here.
Summer 2021 Webinar Series
Webinar Topics:
- September 9: Treating Tobacco Dependence in Corrections Settings
Despite enormous progress in reducing smoking, tobacco use is still the leading cause of preventable death in the United States and imposes a terrible toll on families, businesses and government. Anti-smoking efforts have not been directed toward people with behavioral health conditions as they have toward the general population resulting in tobacco-related disparities.
The Washington State Health Care Authority and Washington State Department of Health are excited to host summer webinars on integrating tobacco treatment in behavioral health. Expert speakers will share their experience, knowledge, and best practices on the topics of tobacco cessation, pharmacotherapy, intervention, youth and adult treatment including criminal justice populations, policy guidance, and integrating tobacco treatment into organizations.
This webinar series is ideal for behavioral health professionals, tobacco use dependence treatment (TUDT) professionals, tobacco intervention specialists, or any public health professional who is interested in strengthening their knowledge and skills.
Access all this and more at the webinar series landing page: https://www.preventcoalition.org/webinar-series/.
Public Health + Youth Prevention Marijuana Summit
Provided by Rede Group:
The National Public Health & Youth Prevention - Marijuana Summit brings policy makers, public health professionals, prevention specialists, youth prevention specialists, tobacco control professionals, partners, and advocates together to discuss the new and changing legal retail and medical marijuana landscape in our communities. The summit focus is policy, system and environmental change at the local and state levels. We have also added another emphasis on youth prevention to the 2021 program!
National and local experts will lead discussions for those who currently have legalized retail and medical marijuana and for those who want to be prepared for when it comes.
Enhanced Prevention Learning Series: The Ripple Effects
Overview
This four-session distance learning series offers participants an interactive opportunity to explore and experience Ripple Effects Mapping (REM), a participatory evaluation tool designed to identify the outcomes and impact of complex community work. REM provides you the ability to collect stories of the direct and indirect impacts of your work, while simultaneously being a reflective and engaging process for participants. The series will include skill-based learning opportunities, individual and group activities, reading assignments, and group discussions.
By the end of the series, participants will have increased their capacity to:
- Understand the flow (from start to finish) of a Ripple Effects Mapping event by observing a peer organization participate in a REM session
- Discover the benefits of using this technique to identify the intended and unintended outcomes of your work
- Explore the theory behind the core components
- Learn how to develop Appreciative Inquiry questions and appropriate prompts for effective mapping
- Participate in Appreciative Inquiry conversations; followed by a mind-mapping exercise
- Develop a communications plan to hold your first event
- Discuss coding frameworks and qualitative analysis processes that would be relevant to a prevention/public health framework
- Discover reporting best practices for REM data
Audience
Prevention practitioners, coalition coordinators, and allied partners working to prevent substance misuse in communities and tribes located in Northwest Prevention Technology Transfer Center HHS Region 10: Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. Prevention professionals interested in this course but who work outside of Region 10 are encouraged to contact their region’s PTTC to learn what opportunities for similar courses are available to them.
Session Dates
Session 1 – September 7, 2021
Session 2 – September 14, 2021
Session 3 – September 21, 2021
Session 4 – September 28, 2021
Session Time
12:30 p.m. – 02:00 p.m. Alaska
01:30 p.m. – 03:00 p.m. Pacific
02:30 p.m. – 04:00 p.m. Mountain
New Data Dashboards for Rural Communities
See where rural health disparities exist in your community by exploring the data dashboards, and better understand how you can make data-driven decisions to reduce those disparities with training support.
We are excited to announce the launch of Solutions in Health Analytics for Rural Equity across the Northwest (SHARE-NW). The website is part of a five-year, collaborative project with public health professionals in the Pacific Northwest so they can more effectively identify, address, and communicate about health disparities in the rural communities they serve.
Together, the data and training resources of SHARE-NW can support public health professionals in making data-driven decisions with communities to improve the health and well-being of individuals and families.
Rural Disparities in Adolescent Smoking Prevalence
The Journal of Rural Health (August 2, 2021)
Introduction: Rural residence is a well-established risk factor for risk behaviors and subsequent morbidity and mortality in the United States. Smoking is the primary cause of preventable death and is more prevalent in rural America. As chronic smoking habits typically develop during adolescence, the discrepancy in smoking rates between rural and urban youth likely contributes to a significant geographic disparity in the long-term health of adults.
Methods: Data were extracted from 12th-grader surveys of the US Monitoring the Future study from 1998 to 2018. The historic trends of smoking initiation, ever-regular and current-regular smoking rates of rural and urban adolescents were estimated with intercept-only time-varying effect models. Differences in prevalence between rural and urban youth were calculated for each smoking behavior.
Results: Though overall smoking prevalence continues to decline, this trend is significantly attenuated among rural adolescents compared to urban youth. The absolute difference in lifetime smoking prevalence between rural and urban youth has markedly increased from 6.9% in 1998 to 13.5% in 2018, which is among the highest in the past 20 years and is a potentially alarming upward trend. However, the absolute differences in ever-regular and current-regular smoking prevalence have shown an overall net decline, decreasing from 6.4 to 4.8%, and from 5.5 to 3.0%, respectively.
Conclusions: This geographic disparity between rural and urban adolescents represents a potentially modifiable cause of increased morbidity and mortality in rural areas. Interventions and regulatory efforts should be tailored for rural adolescents to reduce the narrowing but persistent disparity in regular smoking.
Rural Grant Progress
- Photo Toolkit: Published! You may still submit more photos.
- Story Toolkit: Published! You may still submit more stories.
- Website: We added a new visual outcomes page.
- Website: We've added our new Year 3 Annual Plan to the website.
- Map: We'll update our stakeholder map with 2020 Census Data after it's released in Winter.
- Assessment: We're developing a sub-contract with Clark County Public Health to do Healthy Youth Survey analysis in Spring 2022.
- Professional Development: Join the Conference Workgroup to plan our statewide training event.
- Recruitment: Attend a New Member Orientation to learn more about our work.
- Evaluation: Based on all our evaluation, the Steering Committee created an annual timeline of events that will be published soon.
Southwest Region Events
Locks Save Lives Phase 2 Stakeholder Committee
Wednesday September 15
10-11:30 a.m.
Online conference call.
For stakeholders of the campaign and opioid prevention partners.
Coalition Coordinators Meeting
Thursday September 23
9:30-11 a.m.
Online conference call.
For Coalition Coordinators & staff in SW Washington.
Click for full calendar of coalition and community events.
Rural Network Events
Rural Network Meeting <--- August Meeting Date Change
Thursday September 2
2-3:30 p.m.
Online conference call.
For rural volunteers, representatives & leaders across Washington.
Wednesday September 15
1-2 p.m.
Online conference call.
For new, newer, and prospective members of the network.
Thurs September16
12-1:30 p.m.
Online conference call.
For Steering Committee Members of the network.
Tuesday September 21
1-2 p.m.
For those interested in planning a statewide rural training conference.
Thursday September 28
2-3:30 p.m.
Online conference call.
For rural volunteers, representatives & leaders across Washington.
Click for full calendar of coalition and community events.
Other Training & Events
Relevant events not sponsored by Prevent Coalition:
9/23: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion for State Opioid Response
11/2 - 11/3: Washington State Prevention Summit
Connection Is the Best Prevention
Our mission is connecting and supporting communities to build resilience and prevent youth substance use. We envision a healthy, thriving community free of substance abuse.
Forward this newsletter to a friend, colleague or youth leader. You may also pass our news link along: bit.ly/preventnews.
Email: preventcoalition@esd112.org
Website: www.PreventCoalition.org
Location: 2500 NE 65th Ave., Vancouver, WA, USA
Phone: 360-952-3457
Facebook: Facebook.com/PreventCoalition
Twitter: @supportyouthnow