Category Archives: Prevention News

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service recently received more than $1 million to help further the organization’s statewide educational efforts in opioid prevention and recovery.

The grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration will allow Cooperative Extension Service professionals to implement new programming efforts in south central and Western Kentucky during the next two years.

“Kentuckians said substance use and its related effects was the most significant issue facing the commonwealth today in extension’s recently released community assessment survey. This grant will help us aggressively address this issue, and help set communities on the path to recovery,” said Alison Davis, project lead and director of UK’s Community Economic Development Initiative.

Many of the programs in this grant will continue to build on UK Cooperative Extension’s existing efforts to reduce opioid use and aid in recovery efforts across the state. Extension already has successful programs in place that teach gardening, nutrition and life skills education to those recovering from substance use addiction and support programs for families with a loved one with a substance use disorder.

“The Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service is currently recognized as a leader among the land-grant university system for outreach efforts targeting substance use prevention and recovery,” said Jennifer Hunter, assistant director for family and consumer sciences extension and one of the co-leaders on the grant. “We are excited to be able to continue to expand our educational efforts and enhance the level of resources available at the community level.”

As part of the grant, extension will offer an Addiction 101 course geared toward health care workers, extension agents and community leaders. The program will talk about the science behind addiction including genetic and hereditary risk factors for developing an addiction disorder. Alex Elswick, UK extension specialist for substance use prevention and recovery, will lead the program.

“We want to remove the stigmas associated with addiction, so health care workers and community members feel more comfortable and equipped to help those struggling with opioid use addiction and recovery,” he said.

Extension personnel will also offer Botvin LifeSkills Training, which is a national, evidence-based substance abuse prevention program, to area middle school students.

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In the wake of warnings from local and federal health officials, the Scottsdale Unified School District launched its own awareness campaign  to combat vaping amongst its students.

The district kicked off the 60-day social media campaign on Oct. 4. The district will use its social media channels and website to push out information for parents and students on the dangers vaping and e-cigarette use pose to young people’s development, according to the district.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning on Oct. 4, directing people to stop using vaping products containing THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana, or other vaping products bought off the street after reports that hundreds of lung injuries nationwide could be related to them.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said as of Oct. 15, 1,479 lung injury cases were associated with the use of e-cigarette or vaping nationwide.

There are at least six suspected cases in Arizona, including five in Maricopa County.

The CDC has confirmed 33 deaths in 24 states, according to the agency. 

The Maricopa Integrated Health System and the Arizona Public Health Association issued their own vaping warning of the potential health risks and asked doctors to screen patients for vaping-related illnesses.

Vaping is prevalent at Scottsdale high schools.

“Vaping definitely is a very big issue, and it’s problem at secondary schools nationwide and statewide,” said Dr. Steven Chestnut, SUSD executive director of Support Services. “We’re not exempt from that, so we’re seeing that and we’re working on it.”

The FDA’s National Youth Tobacco Survey showed that cigarette use amongst middle and high school students has dropped steadily since 2011. However, e-cigarette use has risen from less than 5 percent in 2011, to over 25 percent in 2019.

Shannon Cronn, clinical services coordinator at SUSD, told the Progress in 2018, that the district had seen a steady increase in tobacco-related referrals over the previous four years tied to vaping and that vaping was a leading cause of office referrals at all five SUSD high schools.

Scottsdale Police records also showed a spike in vaping-related violations at Scottsdale high schools throughout the city.

In February, Scottsdale Police spokesman Officer Kevin Watts said the spike in drug-related calls for service to Scottsdale high schools was tied to e-cigarette use.

According to police reports viewed by the Progress, Desert Mountain High in northern Scottsdale had 16 drug-related violations on campus in 2018, up from five in 2017.

Bella Vista Prep, a private school in northern Scottsdale, also had five drug-related violations on campus in 2017, and 17 violations in 2018.

Drug-related violations at Coronado High School rose from eight in 2017, to 17 in 2018.

There is some evidence the rise in violations in Scottsdale schools is specifically tied to the use of vaping and e-cigarette devices to use marijuana-related products containing THC – the ingredient at the center of the FDA’s warning.

Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 12, 2019, all five drug-related violations at Desert Mountain High School and all six violations at Bella Vista Prep were related to use or possession of vaping or e-cigarette products containing THC, according to police department records.

The SUSD social media campaign will include links to Arizona Department of Health Services and CDC resources.

Through its social media campaign coincided with warnings from federal regulators, SUSD had already taken steps to educate students about the dangers of vaping and other harmful activities.

Last month the district hosted a presentation at Saguaro High School on the dangers of vaping and opioids that was open to all students and parents. Stephanie Siete, public information officer with Community Bridges Inc., hosted the talk.

Chestnut said high school prevention coaches and social workers also shared information about the dangers of vaping through video announcements, open houses and other school gatherings.

District assistant principals have also received training from Erika Mansur, an attorney with the Arizona Attorney General’s Tobacco Enforcement Unit.

The district is also taking steps to reach younger students.

Two middle schools will be pilot-testing a new LifeSkills Training Program on the topics of tobacco/vaping, alcohol and marijuana. The program targets the major psychosocial factors that promote the initiation of risky behaviors among teens and teaches personal self-management, social skills, and other resilience skills necessary to navigate the challenges of adolescence, Chestnut explained.

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Carteret County, North Carolina, has added a LifeSkills training to their school drug prevention curriculum. In an ongoing effort to discourage teen drug use, officials and educators have agreed that this evidence-based program provides useful messaging to teens who are introduced to drugs. These kinds of programs offer meaningful tools for teens to employ when they are exposed to drugs.

The Botvin LifeSkills Training program works with schools, families, and communities. Teachers can be trained to present the curriculum to students. The program targets children from 3rd grade to 12th grade. Elementary age students have 24 class sessions, middle school students have 30 class sessions and high school students have 10 class sessions. Each year, a teacher manual and student guide are updated with the latest research. In addition to substance abuse prevention, the program incorporates prevention messages for physical and verbal aggression, fighting and delinquency.

Life Skills Training to Prevent Teen Drug Use

Teen drug use can be decreased with concerted prevention efforts. LifeSkills training for teens includes teaching teenagers life skills that will help them avoid drug use. Some of these skills include:

• Personal self-management: Experts at the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy for the Administration for Children and Families explain that intervention services for teens that promote self-management can help prevent adverse behaviors. Some techniques include soft skills, mentoring, coaching, mind-body practices, and emotional development.
• General social skills: The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry explains that some teens use drugs or alcohol as a way to self-medicate for issues of anxiety, depression or a lack of social skills. Promoting healthy social skills through information, practices, and modeling is an opportunity to prevent drug and alcohol abuse.
• Drug-resistant skills: Researchers writing in the Journal for Primary Prevention describe how social influence modeling is an important aspect of school substance abuse prevention programs. These include resistance strategies and confidence in applying those strategies.

These skills play an important role in decreasing the likelihood of substance abuse in teens.

Teen Drug Use Statistics

Statistics on drug use in adolescence are published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Youth substance abuse statistics include the fact that:

• Two-thirds of 12th graders have tried alcohol
• Marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol are the most frequently abused substances by teens
• Roughly half of high school students have tried marijuana
• Nearly 20% of seniors in high school have misused prescription medication

The level of access and frequency of drugs and alcohol use in the teen years necessitates intervention strategies that work.

Success Rates of LifeSkills Training

Drug prevention programs for youth have long been a part of student education in public schools. Youth prevention programs have included messaging to deter drug and alcohol abuse. Teenage drug prevention programs are often hosted by teachers who are trained in the curriculum or by public health or law enforcement officials. According to LifeSkills, their programs:

• Decrease drug use by up to 75%
• Decrease alcohol use by up to 60%
• Decrease tobacco use by up to 87%

This program is endorsed by multiple federal and state bodies, including the U.S. Department of Education and the American Medical Association.

Additional Tips for Prevention of Substance Abuse Among Youth

Teen substance abuse prevention is an important part of public health. Programs that promote messaging for the prevention of substance abuse among youth have long been a part of the school curriculum in both middle and high schools. According to research published in the Child And Adolescent Psychiatry Clinical Journal of North America, youth substance abuse prevention can be supported by multiple efforts, including:

• Normative education that addresses inaccurate ideas about drinking, smoking and taking illegal drugs
• Competence-enhancement that helps young people develop the social and personal skills that help them say no to drugs
• Life Skills Training (LST) programs that speak to the primary psychological and social factors that lead to substance abuse

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From WNKY40

“GLASGOW Ky.- A grant worth $14,000 means more opportunities for staff and students at four Barren County schools when it comes to education on substance abuse, and mental health. Thanks to a grant from the Bright Coalition, Austin Tracy and Red Cross Elementary along with Barren County Middle and High Schools can now begin to use the funding for that purpose.

“What this funding will do is put more materials in the hands of our counselors, our mental health workers, and they’ll use this to get materials to support those students as they do counseling with them,” said, Heather Gardner, the grant writer for Barren County.

Services have already been laid out. One of those resources is Botvin LifeSkills Training, which is an evidence-based substance abuse training program. Barren County Middle School can now also fund a program called Sources of Strength, which is a research based program to help students with a combination of other factors like mental health and healthy activities.”

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From Times-Tribune

“CORBIN — Corbin Independent Schools announced recently that it was awarded a grant to enhance counseling services in its district from the United States Department of Education. The grant is for $1,425,000 to be expended over a five-year period.

The grant will provide additional school counselors throughout the district, helping to support the following initiatives for students:

— develop positive personal relationships with others,

— develop determination, perseverance and the ability to overcome obstacles,

— develop self-esteem through perseverance and earned success,

— develop problem solving skills; and

— develop self-regulation in order to work toward long-term goals.

Evidence-based programs that will be implemented include Second Step, Dr. Botvin’s LifeSkills Training program and Project Green Dot.

Each of these programs will serve their age-appropriate students in which they are designed. Additionally all staff within the Corbin Independent School District and other personnel that work with youth in the region will be certified through the evidence-based program called Youth Mental Health First Aid.

The grant project will begin this school year.

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From The Stanly News and Press

“Stanly County has received a major financial boost in its battle to combat the opioid epidemic.

The Center for Prevention Services in Charlotte was recently awarded a five-year, $1.25 million Partnership for Success Grant to serve Stanly. The grant, funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, began this month and will run through Sept. 30, 2024.

CPS provides primary prevention education services to Mecklenburg, Cabarrus, Rowan, Stanly, Union and Davidson counties.

The grant will provide approximately $260,000 per year to fund new efforts in Stanly aimed at reducing substance abuse.

CPS will administer a Youth Drug Survey to students in the sixth, eighth, tenth and twelfth grades next spring. The survey will be voluntary, the information the students share will be anonymous and schools can opt out if they choose.

The data will help better inform service providers about the substance abuse issues in the schools and the magnitude of the issues. The survey has been administered to Mecklenburg County students for 30 years.

The survey includes questions about how often students use alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes (including e-cigarettes) and prescription drugs.

CPS grant manager Neetu Verma said CPS has received approval from Stanly County Schools for administering the survey next year. Parents will also receive a permission form they can sign if they do not want their children participating in the survey.

The survey will be administered to the students every other year.

Teachers and counselors from middle and high schools will be given the opportunity to be trained in the Botvin LifeSkills Training program.

It is an evidence-based prevention program backed by more than 30 scientific studies that has been shown to be effective in reducing alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and other drug use. Studies show the program also helps reduce violence and school drop-out and helps with student academic performance.

The program has been used with youth in all 50 states and 39 other countries.

At least two teachers from middle and high schools will be trained in the program by Botvin trainers. The program curriculum for middle school students will be different than the curriculum for high school students.

The tentative plan is for middle school teachers to be trained next year and high school teachers the year after.

The Youth Drug Survey will provide CPS and school officials with baseline data which will then better inform the lifeskills training program, Verma said.”

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Posted: Oct 10, 2019 12:13 AM EDT

UME to expand training and build capacity for rural Maryland to manage behavioral health crises.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. (PRWEB) October 10, 2019

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Maryland ranks in the top five in the nation for opioid-related overdose death rates with the largest increase attributed to cases involving synthetic opioids (mainly fentanyl). University of Maryland Extension faculty and partners have been awarded a grant of over $1M to build capacity within rural communities to help deal with the growing opioid issues throughout the state.

The Rural Opioids Technical Assistance Grant, awarded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), funds an effort to utilize the successful Extension education model to deliver training to the rural Maryland communities struggling with mental and behavioral health issues.

“One of the things we noted while conducting a needs assessment was gaps in understanding the opioid crisis and available resources to help or get information,” said Dr. Jinhee Kim, Professor and Family & Consumer Sciences Program Leader with the University of Maryland Extension and principal investigator on the grant.

“The overarching goal of this grant is to strengthen the understanding of the epidemic and prevention strategies in rural Maryland and to provide technical assistance with cutting-edge research,” said Ali Hurtado, Co-Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland.

Partnering with the Center for Substance Abuse Research, the UMD School of Public Health, MayaTech, and the Maryland Rural Health Association, Extension educators will deliver evidence-based training programs to local residents that will help strengthen the ability of rural communities to recognize, understand, and respond to opioid misuse and other behavioral health issues.

Over the next two years, UME will train 120 educators in the evidence-based program Mental Health First Aid. That curriculum will also be delivered to 500 community leaders and service providers within the identified rural regions. Several organizations, including the Rural Maryland Council, the Mental Health Association of Maryland, the Maryland Association of Conservation Districts, and the Maryland Department of Agriculture, have already made commitments to work with UMD Extension and partners to assist in the program’s delivery.

“The misuse and opioid addiction is a national public health concern that kills over 130 people every day nationwide,” said Hurtado. “Our study team will collaborate with local partners that have the expertise and are trusted in the community.”

“Ideally, increasing their capacity will help them acknowledge, be aware, and understand the mental and behavioral health issues impacting their community,” said Kim. “You don’t have to be dealing with someone who has an opioid issue to gain resources and knowledge from this training – it trains people to assist anyone with a mental or behavioral health issue.”

A second goal of the project is to deliver a proven prevention program, the Botvin LifeSkills curriculum, to middle-school aged children as well, thereby decreasing youth susceptibility to substance abuse. Training will be provided for 40 educators throughout the next two years, and the program will be provided for 650 students, as well as parents or caregivers.

The team will also increase community capacity for combating the opioid epidemic in rural Maryland by creating an advisory group on Rural Maryland Opioid Issues and creating a virtual network of Extension and community educators, partners, and local practitioners. Six virtual trainings will be available for educators and practitioners, and eight webinars will be produced for individuals, families and communities, all available through an online platform.

“Extension’s role is very important because we are a trusted source of health and wellness information within our communities,” said Kim. “Great work has been, and is being done in the opioid crisis here in Maryland, and we’re helping and supporting those programs by building out the capacity of rural Maryland for a comprehensive approach.”

For more information, contact Laura Wormuth, Communications Coordinator, at 301-405-6869 or lwormuth@umd.edu.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: https://www.prweb.com/releases/university_of_maryland_extension_awarded_1m_to_combat_the_opioid_epidemic/prweb16634415.htm

This article was originally distributed via PRWeb. PRWeb, WorldNow and this Site make no warranties or representations in connection therewith.

For the second year in a row, representatives from Nanticoke Health Services recently visited several elementary schools to distribute purple bracelets to third- through fifth-grade students.

The bracelets, which had printed on them “Choosing Me. Drug Free.” were given to students at Phillis Wheatley Elementary in Bridgeville and Central Elementary and Frederick Douglass Elementary in Seaford.

Nanticoke’s donation is a part of Delaware Goes Purple, an all-out community effort to end substance abuse in the community through awareness and prevention. Delaware Goes Purple launched in September 2018 as a part of national substance abuse awareness month. Delaware Goes Purple is organized through the Sussex County Health Coalition who is also spearheading the peer to peer Botvin LifeSkills Training program in Seaford High and Middle schools. Botvin is a nationally known program that mentors youth, empowering them to make healthy life decisions.

Delaware Goes Purple is supported by the Delaware Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health, Highmark and all Delaware hospitals.

For more, visit delawaregoespurple.org.

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NHPA is pleased to offer Substance Abuse Prevention Workshops designed for health educators and professionals seeking to expand their experience, knowledge, and skills related to prevention education.

Teaching Marijuana Prevention

The status of marijuana has undergone rapid legal and cultural shifts in recent years. These changes present specific challenges to school and community health educators.

In this workshop, participants will explore the social and legal trends in acceptance, the pharmacology of marijuana, and effective strategies for responding to the misconceptions adolescents hold about marijuana.

Join us for an online professional development workshop where we will:

• Examine trends in the social & legal acceptance of marijuana in the US
• Consider effective strategies in responding to learners
• Develop specific responses to challenging questions that may arise in school and community education settings

See more info on the next 2-part online workshop which will be held on October 10th and October 17th,2019. Visit the Training Schedule to register.