This is a report from Children and Family Futures that defines and provides examples of collaborative practice in each of the ten system linkage elements, focused in the child welfare, substance use treatment, and juvenile court dependency systems. State and community collaborative groups can use this information to guide their own efforts to implement collaborative practice in their own communities.

This is a report using the Communities That Care (CTC) model to combat risky youth behaviors. In rural western Massachusetts, a CRC coalition with members from many sectors of the community has been working for more than a decade to support youth well-being and reduce youth substance use. In that time, youth drinking, cigarette smoking, and marijuana use have declined substantially, as have targeted risk factors underlying problem behaviors.

This report summarizes the experience of the CTC Coalition of Franklin County and the North Quabbin region, providing a replicable example of how a collaboration involving health care and community partners can successfully create measurable, positive changes in community health.

This is an article from the CDC that discusses how people with substance use disorder are especially vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic, with an emphasis on the likely outcome that economic disruptions will increase substance use. The article highlights what is being done so far and has links to helpful resources. 

This is a written testimony from 2017 presented to Congress by experts in the Department of Health and Human Services outlining the steps the department has taken to advance the goals of the Opioid Strategy. This document presents how leaders at SAMHSA, CDC, NIH, and FDA bring unique expertise and capabilities that enable HHS to take a comprehensive, complementary, and flexible approach to the opioid crisis.

This is a website where you can download a report from Shatterproof that reviews data from states that suffered the highest number of fentanyl overdose deaths from 2011 through 2017. Based on reviewing this data, the report identifies a number of promising state initiatives that are already in place and having a positive effect on curbing overdose deaths. It also recommends several new strategies that states should adopt in order to save the most lives.

This is an academic paper that provides an overview of the impact of the opioid crisis on children and adolescents, as well as summarizes challenges to improving outcomes for children. Adverse consequences of parental opioid use related to the family unit are discussed in detail. 

This is an issue brief from the National Council on Aging that uses a survey to understand how older adults and their caregivers are affected by the opioid crisis and identify new resources and tools needed for organizations to better serve their communities. Recommendations are provided specific to this population. 

This academic paper addressed inappropriate opioid prescription in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania through the distribution of opioid prescription report cards to clinicians. These individualized report cards provided clinicians with an evaluation of their opioid prescribing patterns in relation to their peers and whether they were considered inappropriate or not. Results of providing these reports to clinicians were promising, highlighting a potential for collaboration between public health departments and Medicaid managed care organizations. 

This is a report from the Center for Applied Research Solutions (authors Springer and Phillips) that delves into the Institute of Medicine (IOM) categorization of prevention into universal, selective, and indicated populations, a widely adopted model in the prevention field, which can help select the most effective prevention interventions and populations to target. 

The Network for Public Health Law is a website that gives guidance on legal and policy solutions. This link is specific to resources for substance use prevention and harm reduction. 

This is a report from the Brookings Institute that explores the link between the opioid crisis and the education outcomes of children in hard-hit areas. It findings introduce a potentially troubling side of the nation’s opioid crisis not recently examined, the adverse effects on the learning potential of children.

This research brief examines relationships between indicators of economic opportunity and the prevalence of prescription opioids and substance use in the United States. It also explains that overall, areas with lower economic opportunities are disproportionately affected by the opioid crisis, but the extent of that relationship varies regionally.