Nearly 2,500 attendees, including 365 youth, gathered at the Gaylord Palms Resort in Orlando, Florida, from July 12-16 for CADCA’s 25th Annual Mid-Year Training Institute, a milestone anniversary for one of the prevention field’s longest-running training conferences.
For the first time, CADCA Mid-Year shared its stage with the inaugural DEA Fentanyl Free America Summit, expanding this year’s program to include perspectives from law enforcement, regulatory, and federal partners alongside CADCA’s core prevention training. One registration gave attendees access to both events, bringing DEA leadership and prevention practitioners into the same rooms and conversations throughout the week.
This year’s theme, Powered by Purpose, reflected a field moving from resilience to forward momentum, fueled by clarity, confidence, and a shared mission. For five days, coalition leaders, prevention professionals, public health experts, and youth advocates from across the country came together for hands-on training, peer connection, and strategies to bring back to their communities.
The Opening Plenary set the tone, featuring Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, ONDCP Director Sara Carter, DEA Administrator Terrance C. “Terry” Cole, and Senator Ashley Moody, who spoke to the current fentanyl crisis and the collaboration needed to address it. The Summit also featured the inaugural DEA Fentanyl Free America Excellence in Protection Awards, recognizing outstanding law enforcement and organizational leadership in protecting communities from illicit fentanyl.
This year’s conference also marked the presentation of CADCA’s Lifetime Achievement Award to Beverly Watts Davis, recognizing more than 40 years of work across nearly every level of the prevention field. Over her career, Watts Davis has served as an elected official in Texas, a Senior Executive Service leader at SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, and in executive roles with organizations including San Antonio Fighting Back and United Way of San Antonio and Bexar County. She currently serves as Chief Officer for Program Support and Senior Vice President for Texas Operations at WestCare Foundation, and her long-standing ties to CADCA include service on its Board of Directors. Congratulations to Beverly Watts Davis on this well-earned recognition.
Across hundreds of training sessions, attendees dug into the issues shaping prevention work today, including:
- Youth engagement and leadership development
- Coalition sustainability and grant funding
- Data-informed prevention and evaluation
- Emerging and evolving drug trends
- AI and other innovative tools for coalition work
This year’s agenda also included a full slate of Spanish-language sessions, among them a session on cross-sector strategies to address fentanyl and synthetic drug threats featuring DEA Office of Diversion Control Deputy Assistant Administrator Jose Roman.
With 365 youth attendees this year, the conference’s youth programming remained a cornerstone of the week. Participants ages 13-19 moved through two tracks: Key Essentials, a foundational training on substance misuse, vaping, underage drinking, and prescription drug misuse; and The Empowered Youth: Pathways to Prevention, an advanced track building on those fundamentals with a focus on leadership and coalition-building.
Twenty-five years in, CADCA’s Mid-Year Training Institute continues to be a gathering point for the people doing prevention work in communities across the country, and this year’s expanded program, co-located DEA Fentanyl Free America Summit, and strong youth turnout point to a field that’s growing, not just persisting.
Thank you to everyone who joined us in Orlando. We’re already looking forward to next year.
