A Division for Advancing Prevention & Treatment (ADAPT) provides substance use prevention Training and Technical Assistance to High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA)

communities across the nation. The Prevention Post keeps HIDTA communities

up-to-date with the latest advances and opportunities in the field.

Chicago HIDTA Hosts First Statewide Prevention Summit

In November 2024, the Chicago HIDTA hosted its first Illinois Prevention Summit with the theme Stronger Together! This day-long event attracted 135 public safety, public health, and prevention professionals committed to working together to address overdose, trauma, and mental health needs in Illinois.

Following welcoming remarks by Director Nicholas Roti (pictured left), prevention experts and practitioners delivered presentations to strengthen understanding of substance use, trauma, and mental health strategies and share prevention resources available across the state in these areas.

Through these impactful presentations, the Summit achieved the following objectives:

1. Sharing of early intervention efforts to prevention overdose using public health/public safety partnerships.
2. Training attendees on strategies to address co-occurring substance use, trauma, and mental health needs.
3. Equipping attendees with evidence-informed tools for maintaining health while serving others.
4. Preparing community-based organizations to cultivate healing environments.

Over 75 participants responded to the event evaluation and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. One participant summarized the Summit in this way, "The Illinois Prevention Summit was a wonderful opportunity to network and educate both myself and my community on the initiatives taking place across the state to promote health and wellness."

Participants especially appreciated receiving physical and digital resources to support their work and the ability to make new professional connections. Participants also responded to the value of the Summit's focus on self-care. One participant shared what they valued most was, "The L.O.V.E. way of communicating and the box breathing exercise I will use personally and professionally."

The Summit’s development and execution was overseen by the Illinois Overdose Response Strategy Team, Vic Markowski (Drug Intelligence Officer) and Kate Reed (Public Health Analyst). Together, this dynamic duo rallied the support of Prevention Champions and Hope Ambassadors throughout the state to build momentum toward advancing prevention efforts and identifying collaborative opportunities.

"Before the summit, we were thrilled to see our room capacity of 135 participants filled with Illinois' most influential prevention champions from diverse sectors and the far corners of our state. During the summit, we were energized by the participants' enthusiasm to connect and their active engagement in sharing reflections and insights. After the summit, the 75 extremely positive evaluations confirmed the tremendous value of coming together to discuss the remarkable initiatives happening across Illinois. Most inspiring, however, has been hearing how participants have so quickly taken action to already invite summit speakers to present at their coalition meetings, eager to bring these tools, programs, and data to their communities. This collaborative effort is already helping Illinois to become more trauma-informed, healing-centered, and effective in overdose prevention strategies. We are truly stronger together!" - Kate Reed, Illinois Public Health Analyst

Well done Chicago HIDTA Team!

New England HIDTA Organizes First Prevention Roundtable to Set the Stage for 2025 Prevention Efforts

Led by New England HIDTA's (NEHIDTA) Prevention Coordinator, Paul McNeil, the Prevention Roundtable convened influential leaders from the Overdose Response Strategy (ORS), National Guard Counterdrug DDRO Prevention Program, State Prevention Agencies, New England Prevention Technology Transfer Center (NEPTTC), and SAMHSA Region 1. The event aimed to identify opportunities to advance prevention initiatives, foster collaboration within and across states, and strengthen connections across NEHIDTA.

Thirty-seven attendees representing all six NEHIDTA states participated. NEHIDTA Director Jay Fallon opened the roundtable by outlining HIDTA’s priorities and highlighting the value of HIDTA threat assessment data in guiding prevention activities. Attendees then introduced their programs, connected with peers, and shared key prevention goals and strategies.

State-specific breakout sessions facilitated in-depth conversations around state prevention priorities, identification of resources and gaps, prevention achievements and how those successes could be expanded upon in other areas of New England, and exploring opportunities for regional partnerships. Participants identified several goals for continued exploration:

• Collaboration: Building partnerships across sectors for sustainable, coordinated prevention efforts.
• Community and Youth Engagement: Empowering youth and fostering collaboration through existing youth prevention initiatives.
• Statewide Support: Identifying opportunities to strengthen prevention infrastructure.
• Education & Policy: Shifting norms, promoting youth education, and ensuring policy compliance.
• Data-Driven Equity: Leveraging existing data sources and prioritizing equitable access to data providing real-time insights.

This group will continue to meet throughout 2025 to carry forward their identified goals.

Prevention Tip

Understanding Youth Flourishing

Youth flourishing can be described as how well children are thriving within their family and community. Attributes that contribute to flourishing have been linked to a reduced likelihood of youth engagement in risky behaviors and the development of mood disorders.

The following 6 attributes of youth flourishing are relationally learned:

1. Self-worth
2. Sense of meaning
3. Engagement in life
4. Having/seeking positive relationships
5. Sense of accomplishment
6. Seeking and experiencing positive emotions.

Beyond relationships, opportunities to promote positive youth development and flourishing exist across multiple other domains, including physical health and functioning, mental and emotional well-being, social behavior, and cognitive and academic areas. Stay tuned, as ADAPT will be unfolding these and many other attributes of well-being and flourishing in youth in 2025!

Sources:

-Agenor C, Conner N, Aroian K. Flourishing: An evolutionary concept analysis. Issues Ment Health Nurs. 2017;38(11):915-923.

-Diener E, Wirtz D, Tov W, Kim-Prieto C, Choi D, Oishi S, et al. New measures of well-being: Flourishing and positive and negative feelings. Social Indicators Research. 2010;39:247-266., Kern ML, Waters LE, Adler A, White MA. A multidimensional approach to measuring well-being in students: Application of the PERMA framework. J Posit Psychol. 2014;10(3):262-271.

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.

“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.

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 also released three new tools!

Read more about these tools and the impact of the Summit on participants HERE.

ADAPT Adds Two New Technical Webinars to its

Fundamentals of Substance Use Prevention Series

In October and November of 2024, ADAPT hosted two new technical webinars that are now available for viewing on their YouTube page. The topics are:

• Powering Prevention with Developmental Theory
• The Role of Parenting in Substance Use Prevention

Powering Prevention with Developmental Theory focused on sharing approaches for how to effectively tailor prevention strategies across developmental stages. Attendees left with an enhanced understanding of human development, recognition of the developmental stages most associated with the highest prevalence of mental and behavioral health issues along with understanding developmental risk and protective factors, knowledge of how brain development can inform developmentally timed preventive interventions.

The Role of Parenting in Substance Use Prevention drew out strategies parents can engage in to prevent onset or escalation of substance use in their youth. The presenter explained the importance of positive parenting practices in preventing substance and examined specific evidence-based preventive interventions parents can support along with the expected outcomes of those interventions.

If you missed these events, you can view them at any time from the Substance Use Prevention Technical Webinar Series playlist on ADAPT's YouTube page.

Mark Your Calendars

SAMHSA's 21^th Prevention Day will bring together thousands of prevention practitioners, advocates, scientists, leaders, and consumers dedicated to advancing the prevention of substance use.

This year's theme, "Telling the Prevention Story" underscores sharing the successes of prevention and inspiring action.

This year's Prevention Day will be held on February 3rd, 2025 in National Harbor, MD. The day-long event is free, but registration is required.

To view subscription links to all previously listed resources in this section, such as substance use prevention newsletters, click HERE and scroll to GET CONNECTED. 

Fentanyl Seizure Trends

The Drug Threat Analysis Group (DTAG), formerly the National Emerging Threats Initiative, analyzed recent fentanyl seizures and identified several key trends.

Fentanyl is widely regarded as the most lethal category of mood-altering substances and has played a significant role in the sharp rise in U.S. overdose deaths over the past decade. Analyzing national HIDTA drug seizure data through the first three quarters of 2024 provides valuable insights into future overdose trends.

Fentanyl powder seizures in 2024 are continuing a downward trend. With 5,395 kilograms seized in the first three quarters, the total for 2024 is on pace to fall below the 8,964 kilograms seized in 2023 and well below the 2022 peak of 13,659 kilograms. Quarterly data reveals a consistent decline: 2,022 kilograms were seized in the first quarter, 1,868 kilograms in the second, and 1,505 kilograms in the third.

In contrast, fentanyl pill seizures in 2024 are continuing to increase, reflecting expanded trafficking activities. A total of 83,267,742 pills were seized during the first three quarters, already surpassing the 44,530,250 pills seized in all of 2022 and approaching the 2023 total of 116,814,470 pills. Quarterly trends in 2024 show some variability: seizures totaled 27,610,240 pills in the first quarter, dipped to 25,167,220 pills in the second, and rebounded significantly to 30,490,282 pills in the third quarter, the highest quarterly total. These fluctuations likely reflect changes in trafficking patterns and enforcement efforts.

Compared to previous years, the surge in fentanyl pill seizures observed since 2023 has continued in 2024, underscoring the increasing prominence of pills in the drug trade. This trend highlights a potential shift in fentanyl trafficking from powder to pills, with pills appearing in regions that previously reported minimal powder fentanyl presence. These developments underscore the urgent need for sustained enforcement and prevention strategies to combat the evolving fentanyl crisis.

ODMAP Spotlight Series, Overdose Data Collection Bill,

and New/Updated ODMAP Tools

The ODMAP Spotlight Series is preparing to highlight 4 agencies for their outstanding work. This includes the Nogales Police Department in Arizona, Roanoke City and Alleghany Health District in Virginia, and Meriden Department of Health and Human Services in New Haven, Connecticut. Spotlights can be viewed here.

A new bill called "Opioid Overdose Data Collection Enhancement Act" was introduced by Senator Chuck Grassely of Iowa and Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington. The bill permits the Justice Department to award grants to states, law enforcement units, cities, and tribes that run overdose data collection programs, such as ODMAP. You can learn more here. 

New and updated tools

The ODMAP team has created an ODMAP training manual to help users and stakeholders. You can locate this on the ODMAP website.

The API Guidance Sheet, as well as the Community Coalition Toolkit, have both recently been updated. The API Guidance Sheet discusses how to integrate an API with ODMAP, and the Community Coalition Toolkit helps community coalitions access overdose data through ODMAP to inform overdose response, reduction, and prevention activities in their communities.

The Return on Investment on Substance Use Prevention

A recent publication by the Central East PTTC emphasizes the economic advantages of substance use prevention programs. Prevention interventions can reduce healthcare costs, improve productivity, and alleviate burdens on the criminal justice system, making them a valuable investment. This resource offers essential insights to raise awareness and shift perspectives towards prevention as a long-term economic solution.

View the full resource HERE.

Collaborative Substance Use Prevention: Stronger Together

A recent publication by SAMHSA emphasizes the importance of collaborative approaches in substance use prevention. By focusing on protective and risk factors, prevention strategies can address the root causes of substance use and its harms through thoughtfully integrated universal, selective, and indicated interventions tailored to different populations and needs. Key recommendations include:

• Building partnerships across sectors to ensure cohesive prevention strategies.
• Tackling foundational issues that influence positive youth development such as social determinants of health, adverse childhood experiences, and trauma.
• Ensuring prevention initiatives are inclusive of diverse perspectives and lived experiences.
• Prioritizing upstream efforts to prevent challenges before they develop.

Collaboration across prevention programs is essential to maximize impact, share resources, and create meaningful change. Read the full blog HERE.

Prioritizing Equity in Prevention: Exploring Health Equity among Rural Populations

The Pacific Southwest PTTC recently held a learning session dedicated to addressing health equity in rural and frontier communities. This session shed light on the distinctive challenges and opportunities in these regions, focusing on their unique populations, living conditions, and geographic dynamics.

View the full recording and resources HERE.

Promoting Collaboration between Prevention and Harm Reduction

A recent resource by Central East PTTC highlights the value of combining prevention and harm reduction efforts to improve health outcomes and extend the reach of services. By focusing on shared objectives, such as lowering overdose rates and reducing risks associated with substance use, collaboration fosters a more unified approach. Together, prevention and harm reduction efforts create a stronger, more effective response to substance use challenges.

View the full resource HERE.

Determining Best Strategies for Allocating Pharmaceutical Settlement Dollars

On June 11 and November 12, 2024, the National Prevention Science Coalition to Improve Lives hosted a two-part briefing series to explore strategies for effectively using pharmaceutical settlement funds to combat the opioid crisis. The briefings featured public health experts and emphasized the importance of addressing risk factors, fostering supportive environments, and investing in prevention efforts. Experts highlighted the cost-effectiveness of prevention strategies which reduce healthcare costs, minimize system involvement, and support children’s health and well-being.

View the recordings and resources HERE and HERE.

Preventing Substance Use Among Young Adults with Disabilities

A recent publication by SAMHSA emphasizes the critical need for substance use prevention programs tailored to young adults aged 18–25 with disabilities. This population faces distinct challenges, including heightened risks of mental health issues and substance use disorders. The publication provides strategies for creating inclusive, accessible, and culturally sensitive programs that address these risks. Key approaches include using trauma-informed practices, fostering positive youth development, and engaging peer support networks. By focusing on accessibility and equity, healthier outcomes can be promoted for young adults with disabilities.

View the full publication HERE.

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Sincerely,

The ADAPT Team

https://www.hidta.org/adapt/

Emai us: adapt@wb.hidta.org