2024 HIDTA Prevention Summit Identifies Strategies and Collaborative Opportunities for School-Based Prevention

This year’s HIDTA Prevention Summit attracted over 2,000 registrants to learn about the fundamental pillars and principles of a school-based prevention system that integrates today’s drug landscape and builds capacity through community partners.

The Summit was “very informative with transferable best practices that could be implemented in my city schools.” –Participant testimonial 

“I really enjoyed being empowered, and gaining more knowledge as it related to substance use and our youth.” – Participant testimonial

This year’s Summit was grounded in four key messages

  1. School-community collaborations build capacity for school-based prevention efforts.
  2. Synergies exist among prevention strategies addressing shared substance use, mental health, violence, and academic outcomes in youth.
  3. Awareness of the true positive norms related to youth substance use can protect against onset or escalation of use.
  4. Positive childhood experiences promote youth flourishing and can have a lifelong impact on well-being, mitigating the effects of adverse life events.

“As a Prevention Educator (primarily at the elementary level), the session about Synergies was great. It provided some concrete numbers to show what we already know- that SEL has exponential benefits.” – Participant testimonial

Community, state, national, and international prevention experts and practitioners delivered presentations to strengthen understanding of the need to prioritize substance use prevention and integrate prevention activities into a comprehensive community-based strategy. Key concepts were presented and integrated into a shared “way of thinking” about prevention among the presenters. Concepts were brought to life in a case study led by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.

Prevention and education professionals delivered presentations to strengthen understanding of the need for school-based prevention and share strategies for advancing school prevention efforts through school-community collaborations. This concept of a school-community collaborative prevention effort was brought to life with a case example describing a successful social norms media campaign in middle schools implemented by a school and their local community coalition.

Participants were oriented to the importance of selecting prevention strategies that prevent common, co-occurring outcomes in youth such as substance use, mental health, and violence. They also received recommendations based on the best available evidence for how to integrate fentanyl education and naloxone training into schools to prevent opioid use and overdose.

ADAPT releases three new tools

As in previous years, ADAPT released tools to support Summit participants in furthering their understanding of the concepts presented as well as aid them in integrating what they learned into their own work. This year, three tools were released.

  1. School-Based Prevention: Principles, Pillars, & Opportunities for School-Community Collaboration. The purpose of this guide is to increase awareness and knowledge of important components of a school-based prevention system and highlight opportunities for schools to collaborate with community partners to build capacity to support prevention activities.
  2. Preventing Opioid Use & Overdose in School-Age Youth. This resource provides evidence-informed considerations for how to share substance-related information with youth 11-18 grounded in the science of social norms to reduce the risk of unintended harm.
  3. A Guide to Implementing a Social Norms Media Campaign for Substance Use Prevention in Secondary Schools. The purpose of this guide is to support schools and community partners in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of a social norms media campaign in middle, junior, and high school settings.

 

Access all tools under the ‘Tools Released by ADAPT’ heading @ the Prevention Intervention Resource Center

Summit participants’ responses were overwhelmingly positive 

“I appreciate the tools, websites, and additional resources that were provided during the summit and plan to review them and integrate in the drug prevention work I do in the schools I visit.” –Participant testimonial 

Summit information was easily understood by participants and promoted learning along with confidence in applying new knowledge. A striking 99% of Summit participants who completed the post- Summit evaluation walked away having learned something new. 77% left ready to apply what they had learned and 72% described they would be using the newly released tools in the coming weeks! Participants described the concepts and strategies presented as highly relatable to their work (endorsed by 94%), translated into familiar language (98%) and presented in digestible ways (96%).

Being around other people who are in prevention and hearing their passion and experience. It always gives me renewed energy for my job.” – Participant testimonial

Importantly, 95% of respondents left the event feeling more CONFIDENT in identifying opportunities to support school-based prevention in their local community.

In case you missed it, access all Summit recordings and resources HERE.

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