Each year, the Strafford County Addiction Task Force hosts an Addiction Summit to bring the latest information, evidence-based programs and best-practices related to the prevention, treatment, recovery and reduction of harm from substance use and mental health to our partners in the region. The annual Addiction Summit provides an opportunity for those working across different areas of the community to build their knowledge and skills in these topic areas, and highlights the areas that the Task Force will focus on over the coming year.
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Our Keynote Presentation
Presenters: Kellie Mueller, MEd, Assistant Vice President at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, Behavioral Health Services; Jen Stout, LICSW, MLADC, Clinical Supervisor, Wentworth-Douglass Hospital | The Doorway; Peter Fifield Ed.D. MLADC LCMHC, Substance Use Disorder Program Manager, Integrated Behavioral Health Program Manager, Wentworth-Douglass Hospital | The Doorway
Learning Objectives:
- Describe a 3-year effort at Wentworth Douglass Hospital to improve care for patients with substance use disorder through an educational and cultural change effort
- Share information and tools that attendees can use to create change in their organization’s approach to treating or otherwise serving people with substance use disorders
Target Audience: Education, health care professionals, clinicians, administrators, general community
Description: Within the session, the SURT “Leads” will describe the planning and implementation of a Wentworth Douglass Hospital program to improve care for patients with substance use disorder throughout the organization. The hospital initially used funding from the Foundation for Healthy Communities to create a Substance Use Resource Team (SURT) . The purpose of this team was to create a program that would institute widespread provider and staff education on various aspects of care related to working with people with substance use disorders. Training topics include Substance Use Disorder 101, Trauma Informed Care, Motivational Interviewing, Harm Reduction, and Patient Experience, among others. The program has used a ”Diffusion of Innovation” model of expand its reach throughout the inpatient and outpatient hospital systems, creating two distinct programs- one for individuals wanting a higher level of expertise consisting of 9 virtual modules and 3 live classes (SURT Champions) , as well as a departmental/team designation focused on wider spread training of the 5 “Core Modules” (SURTified).
This program was conceived of in response to two sources of information: patients and staff. A staff survey confirmed that many survey responders found working with individuals with substance use disorder challenging, and felt less confidence and competence in treating these patients compared to those without this diagnosis. In addition, research supports anecdotal patient experiences of leaving the hospital and not completing care (discharged against medical advice) due to having a difficult hospital experience. This program sought to begin the process of supporting staff in better understanding the possible challenges that folks with SUD bring with them into the hospital/ health care environment, and offering some tangible tools to work with patients most effectively.
The response to this program has been very positive. We have offered 2 rounds of SURT Champion training, with another beginning this summer. We have trained approximately 150 staff and providers from 31 departments throughout the hospital, from nurses to social workers to administrators. In addition, 14 departments completed the first round of “SURTified” training, meaning that 80% of staff completed the 5 core training modules, accounting for 235 individuals. The second round is currently ongoing. In addition, when we sent out a follow up survey, we saw feelings of confidence and competence in working with patients with substance use disorder improve by almost 30%.
We continue to work to promote and grow this program throughout the organization in an effort to ultimately eradicate the stigma that often prevents people with substance use disorders from seeking health care treatment and offering them quality and compassionate care in return. We have also worked to make this program accessible to other organizations by creating a SURT Guidebook, a step-by-step guide to implementing this program within other organizations.
2023 Summit Workshop Session Descriptions
Presenter: Jarrod Wheeler, Registered Paramedic
Learning Objectives:
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- Understanding compassion fatigue from the public safety perspective (ex. Cumulative stress, Adverse patient interactions, etc.)
- Understanding how to utilize the public trust public safety has built with individuals
- Identifying opportunities for practice and training to build public safety capacity and strengthen public health partnerships in a solution-oriented public safety community
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Target Audience: Public health professionals including but not limited to mental health treatment, substance misuse treatment, recovery and prevention as well has organizations dealing with food insecurity and housing insecurity.
Description: The primary objective of this discussion is to help create a better understanding between the public health community and emergency medical providers on the street, as well as management, and identify ways to collaborate to better serve our communities. Both public health and public safety professionals want solutions. The general consensus is “let’s get to work and find them”. Providers on the street are called on people’s worst days and at their greatest times of need. Training for these topics is scarce and providers are frustrated with their own lack of knowledge and tools to help with these complex problems. Phone numbers don’t solve problems, people do. The goal of this training and discussion is to find opportunities to work with our public health community to provide the public safety community with wanted tools and training to provide this care that is so desperately needed in our communities. The mission of Public Safety is expansive and while this is a massively important piece of the mission, it is by no means the only piece. The hope is that through this discussion, we can develop positive ways to efficiently and respectfully find solutions to our shared concerns. With that we can help make measurable and positive progress on the streets with people in need from both a public safety and public health perspective.
Presenters: Jordan Trombino, Safe Harbor Recovery Center, Recovery Specialist; Heidi Cloutier MSW University of New Hampshire Institute on Disability
Learning Objectives:
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- Participants will learn about the elements continuum of care consistent with the NH
- Children's Behavioral Health System of Care, including partners and implementation strategies
- to support scale up and sustainability.
- Participants will learn about NH’s Alternative Peer Group model and implementation of APGs
- Participants will learn the benefits of school based APG’s and strategies for effective partnership with schools
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Target Audiences: Peer Support Providers, Administrators. School based Counselor, Clinician/ therapist private practice or community mental health, Case Manager, Community provider, Student
Description: Youth and young adults are high-risk populations for the development of chronic substance misuse and yet there are few treatment interventions designed to meet their unique developmental needs. Suspensions and harsh exclusionary discipline can often worsen or increase the likelihood of youth developing substance use disorders. This workshop will focus on 2 years of implementation of Alternative Peer Groups in several NH Schools. Alternative Peer Groups are youth-led and focused on creating health-promoting social networks for youth in recovery from SUD. This workshop includes several case examples, a description of the implementation context, and factors for successful partnership with schools.
Materials:
Presenters: Hannah Martuscello, Dover Coalition for Youth Prevention Programmer; Vicki Harris, Director, Dover Coalition for Youth
Learning Objectives:
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- Attendants will be able to identify the different categories and tactics of High-risk alcohol branding and marketing
- Attendants will be able to understand how the high-risk products and advertisements attract youth
- Attendants will be able to conduct their own environmental scan in their community
- Define what is meant by Emerging High Risk Alcohol Products and use the list of 7 categories high risk alcohol products to identify products of concern.
- Describe how social media amplifies awareness of high risk alcohol products.
- Evaluate alcohol products found in their community and determine how many high risk categories it falls into.
- Describe 3 examples of community activism related to high risk alcohol products that could be replicated in their community – including how to access the materials needed to replicate a High Risk Alcohol Products presentation in your community.
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Target Audiences: Coalitions, prevention networks and coordinators, public health professionals, and individuals involved in alcohol prevention or working with youth.
Description: The alcohol industry knows its message: That alcohol is part of having fun, having friends, playing sports, or being sexy or manly. This presentation will focus on the influence of advertising and alcohol industry practices on underage drinking. Presenters will provide a thorough inspection of industry practices that get kids’ attention with a special emphasis on emerging, high-risk alcohol products, which are defined as products that are produced, marketed or advertised in a way that creates an unreasonable risk of being attractive to teens or kids that have been introduced to the market in the past 3 years. Presenters describe and provide examples in 7 categories of high risk products, such as products designed to be “healthy”, youthfully packaged, flavorings, and the creation of alcohol versions of beverages that are traditionally teen oriented (and non-alcoholic). The session will also examine the role of social media in promoting these products.
Presenters: Stefanie King, MTSS-B Consultant, NH Department of Education; Heather Clogston, MTSS-B Consultant, NH Department of Education; Celeste Clark, Executive Director, Raymond Coalition for Youth; Samantha Horrigan, Director of Student Wellness, Raymond School District
Learning Objectives:
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- Participants will learn about the NH Multi-Tiered System of Supports for Behavioral health and wellness (MTSS-B) framework and explore tools that districts implementing MTSS-B utilize to strengthen community partnerships.
- Participants will analyze state/regional Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) data and consider ways districts can use their data to inform substance misuse prevention efforts.
- Participants will hear how Raymond’s strong school-community partnership and use of YRBS data has led to effective substance misuse prevention efforts.
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Target Audiences: School professionals (school/district leaders, interventionists, counselors, etc.), youth-serving community resource providers (e.g. mental health center coordinators, clinicians, substance use treatment centers, recreation departments, out-of-school programs, community coalitions, etc.), and family members with school-age youth.
Description: In this workshop, participants will learn about the MTSS-B framework and the core process by which collaborative substance misuse prevention efforts are undertaken by the DCLT. Participants will explore a tool for inventorying community partnerships and examine state and regional YRBS data through the lens of decision-making around implementation of appropriate pre- and postvention supports in schools. Finally, a case example of the successful partnership between the Raymond Coalition for Youth and the Raymond School District will be shared by leaders from these entities.
When implemented with fidelity, MTSS-B positively impacts students’ behavioral health and wellness. Participants will leave with resources and ideas to strengthen school-community partnerships, as well as an appreciation of why district-level collaboration with families and community partners and data-driven decision-making is essential to providing effective substance misuse prevention and support services for youth in schools.
Materials:
Presenters: Marissa Carlson, MS, CPS, Executive Director NH Teen Institute; Maura McGowan, CPS, Program Director NH Teen Institute
Learning Objectives:
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- Participants will be able to define and understand the difference between gender and sexual orientation, identity, and expression.
- Participants will understand the risk factors at play causing higher rates of suicide for the LGBTQ+ community, including the increased risk of substance misuse.
- Participants will identify and strengthen protective factors for suicide in LGBTQ+ youth.
- Participants will be connected to resources to continue learning and supporting LGBTQ+ youth.
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Target Audiences: This workshop is appropriate for professionals at any level of experience.
Description: LGBTQ+ Youth are at 4xs greater risk of suicide than their non-LGBTQ+ peers but why? This workshop will discuss the risk factors that will bring into view what our LGBTQ+ youth are experiencing and the impact it is having on their mental health and substance misuse as well as the protective factors that increase their supports and connections.
Presenter: Meg Helming, Chief Operating Officer of the YMCA Alliance of Northern New England
Learning Objectives:
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- Attendees will leave understanding a methodology for prioritizing public policy issues based on an organization’s mission and values, and determining rules of engagement on policy issues that take into account organizational culture and capacity.
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Target Audiences: Coalitions, Prevention networks, and public health professionals.
Description: Join us to learn how the New Hampshire YMCAs work with each other and community partners to advocate for positive change in their communities. We will discuss the structures and processes the YMCA uses to set its public policy priorities, decides when and how to engage on specific issues and legislation, and leverages both its collective voice and external partnerships to advance shared priorities.
Materials:
Presenter: Jen Stout, LICSW, MLADC, The Doorway at Wentworth Douglass Hospital
Learning Objectives:
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- Discuss concepts of compassion and empathy from a trauma-informed perspective and the benefits of the intentional use of compassion in your work.
- Explore concepts of interpersonal boundaries with client and consider how, and why, we seek to set limits and maintain healthy boundaries in compassionate and therapeutic ways.
- Learn about the roles we may take as providers and how to create healthy boundaries within ourselves to manage compassion fatigue and burnout.
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Target Audiences: Social workers, Recovery coaches, nurses, criminal justice, teachers, hospital staff, and clinicians.
Description: Research suggests that using tools of compassion can improve client outcomes as well as increase staff job satisfaction. This training aims to explore the concept of healthy boundaries through a trauma-informed lens with a focus on compassion. Setting and maintaining boundaries with clients is essential to care, however boundary setting may be experienced strict, authoritarian, or even re-traumatizing to our clients, potentially leading to conflict and poor outcomes. This training will help participants to better understand the purpose of boundaries and to intentionally incorporate theories of compassion, empathy, and resilience into the concrete work they do. Finally, the training will support participants in understanding their personal boundaries and build skills of self-reflection and self-care address feelings of compassion fatigue and burnout.
Presenters: Kerry Nolte, PhD, FNP, Associate Professor of Nursing, University of New Hampshire; Adriane Apicelli, MSW, HRETA Project Manager, University of New Hampshire
Learning Objectives:
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- Participants will have the evidence-base and concrete strategies to support expanding harm reduction capacities in their own practices and in community.
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Target Audiences: Providers serving people who use drugs (PWUD) and community members.
Description: The Harm Reduction Education and Technical Assistance (HRETA) project seeks to educate people who interact with PWUD, to reduce drug related harms. The presentation will provide a brief introduction of harm reduction principles/practices and the socio-ecological model, the academic detailing (AD) framework used to engage individuals and build harm reduction capacity for individual practitioners, and illustrate different collaborative mechanisms recently undertaken to expand harm reduction capacity within NH organizations and communities. We have developed many resources for different audiences over the project’s lifespan, and electronic PDFs will be made available to attendees upon request.
Understanding the driving factors of substance use, the history and evidence-base of harm reduction practices, the landscape of drug related harms and harm reduction services in New Hampshire, and the power of collaborative and inclusive approaches creates opportunities to expand our capacities to meaningfully respond to and mitigate drug related harms.
Presenter: Michael Andrick M. Ed LCPC, Director of Adult Services & Emergency Services at Community Partners, Consultant at the Pine Street Inn Boston Mass
Learning Objectives:
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- Defining Best Practices in Outreach work, involving Housing First thinking and action, harm reduction, contingency management, stabilization, relationship building, and diversion work.
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Target Audiences: Homeless stakeholders, shelters, outreach workers, health care agencies, CoC stakeholders, city officials, addiction providers, first responders, and peer support
Description: The process of outreach and engagement is an art, best described as a dance. Outreach workers take one step toward a potential client, not knowing what their response will be—will the client join in or walk away? Do they like to lead or follow? Every outreach worker has a different style and is better at some steps than others. To dance with grace, when the stakes are high, is the challenge for all of us. Dancing with grace is something we do each and every day in our collective work with the homeless in the City of Boston in shelter or on our streets.
The Behavioral Health Outreach Team, Overnight Outreach Services, and the DMH MATCH Team at PSI work with some of the most vulnerable homeless persons in the City of Boston sheltered, and or unsheltered. We embrace a “no wrong door” approach to the work on the street’s day and night with around the clock services. These presentations are frequently tri-morbid, where persons experiencing homelessness are struggling with chronic and acute medical problems, struggling with substance/poly substance abuse, and behavioral health problems. Persons experiencing homelessness frequently struggle with complex trauma from experiences in their lives and or on the streets or our shelters.
Presenters: Dr. Larry McCullough, Executive Director, Pinetree Institute, Mark Lefebvre, Director of Community Engagement, Pinetree Institute
Learning Objectives:
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- Attendees will gain a working knowledge of a model for Recovery Ready Communities with the Greater Portsmouth Recovery Coalition serving as a case study example.
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Target Audiences: Community sector leaders (city/town government, first responders, law enforcement, court system, and educators), corrections, healthcare professionals, businesses.
Description: The most effective approaches for addressing long-term substance use disorder (SUD) challenges have provided ways to engage all sectors of the community including law enforcement, schools, recovery centers, medical facilities and all community services. These approaches are most effective when they provide a collaborative platform and adopt a trauma-informed approach that considers the underlying impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) on the individuals who are experiencing personal health challenges.
The Greater Portsmouth Recovery Coalition has convened a cross-sector team of leaders and volunteers to raise the recovery capacity of the Portsmouth community by closing gaps in SUD/Co-Occurring Illness services, and addressing the barriers individuals and families face when seeking these services.
The coalition, originally convened in 2019 as the Portsmouth Coordinated Response to SUD, is focused on the following areas based on needs assessment conducted by the coalition. A steering committee and task forces have convened to advance the coalition agenda.