Dear
ORN
(formerly STR-TA) Technical Assistance Consultants,
Thank you again for being a part of this initiative and helping to address this public health priority. Initially when SAMHSA funded the “State Targeted Response - Technical Assistance” grant, the name and acronym was difficult for people to understand and remember, therefore, at the recommendation of our communications team, we renamed the coalition “
Opioid Response Network
(
ORN
)
.”
The previous URL (
www.getSTR-TA.org
) now redirects to
www.OpioidResponseNetwork.org
, but you can still access the website through
www.getSTR-TA.org
. Hopefully this change will make it easier for all to remember and make use of the many resources.
Outreach and Communications
Regarding outreach and promotion, we have a new
brochure
. If you have an upcoming meeting or event where you could use a handful to share with colleagues, feel free to print off copies. Check with your TTS for printing needs. For a larger audience, contact
Jane Goodger
,
ORN
Communications Manager, and she will do her best to accommodate your needs. We will not be able to provide printed copies for all activities, but we will do our best. Feel free to email to friends, colleagues, etc. to spread the word.
We also wanted to let you know that we have launched a newsletter called the
ORN Impact Bulletin
for all partner organizations, the
ORN
Technology Transfer Specialists (TTS’s) working with all of you at the local level, and the prevention, treatment and recovery coaches—that’s you! This will provide you with updates and highlights from the project in an effort to keep you current on our activities and projects. The
Bulletin
illustrates how you are helping to make a difference in your communities and also provide lessons learned for others to take advantage of. We also hope it will stimulate opportunities for collaboration.
Preparing for Presentations
As we continue to receive more TA requests and the workload increases, we feel it’s important to remind everyone of a few items to help streamline our operations:
1)
All TA consultants are expected to work with their local TTS.
TTSs manage all TA requests and therefore must remain in all communications with the requestor and the TA consultants. Please copy them on all communications and include them in all activities as they are required to document these for monitoring, reporting and payment of consultants.
2)
We created a repository for all materials for training and education
because we felt it was vital to have a centralized location of previously developed and vetted materials across prevention, treatment and recovery that are evidence-based and uses standardized language. When asked to provide TA and to present, you are expected to use the resources in the repository.
Note: We require that you use resources already in the repository and conduct a thorough search to collect applicable project materials before attempting to develop or adapt new
materials. Developing new materials raises several challenges:
1) We would be expected to pay you to create new presentations when we already have one available;
2) Formatting becomes a challenge as all presentations are required to be put on a defined
ORN
template and some people are not comfortable with this;
3) We could potentially disseminate inconsistent information that is NOT evidence-based (we are required by SAMHSA to ensure that all presentations are evidence-based); and
4) New materials require a vetting process, which is time consuming, staff intensive and costly. We are trying to avoid wasting resources.
In the event you have been approved for creating a new presentation, you should follow these
guidelines
.
Remember, when you provide TA for the
ORN
project you are representing SAMHSA and the
ORN
initiative. While you have your own opinion about various approaches, we urge you to focus on evidence-based practices and what research has demonstrated to be effective.
Thank you for being a part of this initiative and helping us address the opioid crisis.
We look forward to more collaborative efforts.
Sincerely,