Thousands of substance abuse prevention and treatment specialists from throughout the country will make a “Monumental Impact” at CADCA’s National Leadership Forum. The event will be held, Feb. 1-4 at the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center in National Harbor, Md, and kicks off with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Prevention Day.
“The CADCA Forum is more than a training event. It’s a national movement that brings together federal and state officials and community leaders from across the country to find solutions to our nation’s substance abuse problems,” said CADCA Chairman and CEO Gen. Arthur T. Dean. “Attendees leave our Forum with the inspiration, information, and strategies they need to make their communities safe, healthy and drug free.”
Bertha K. Madras, PhD, Professor of Psychobiology, Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, will keynote the National Leadership Plenary. Dr. Madras will address the importance of using science to inform the public about marijuana’s harm. DEA Acting Administrator Chuck Rosenberg, CADCA Chairman and CEO Gen. Arthur Dean and Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy Michael Botticelli will also be featured speakers at the National Leadership Plenary, which kicks off the event.
The Forum features two days of Power Sessions, which are unique opportunities to engage with Federal representatives. For example, George F. Koob, PhD, Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, will provide an overview of the forthcoming NIAAA Strategic Plan and articulate his vision for the future of alcohol research at NIAAA. Wilson M. Compton, M.D., M.P.E. from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, will lead a conversation about the opioid crisis along with discussion of interventions where community coalitions may play a key role.
During Capitol Hill Day on Feb. 3, participants will hear a legislative update from CADCA’s Public Policy Consultant Sue Thau. CADCA board member The Honorable Mary Bono, Principal, FaegreBD Consulting (Member of Congress 1998-2013) will also provide remarks. A number of Congressional members will also participate.
Nearly 400 youth will also attend the meeting to take part in CADCA’s National Youth Leadership Initiative (NYLI), where youth will learn how to become substance abuse prevention advocates and powerful community leaders.
Attendees can take more than 70 training sessions including one on Feb. 4 called “Lessons from the Field: Florida Coalitions Discuss Smart Disposal.” In this session, best practices and lessons learned from four coalitions in Florida on a unique new drug disposal project will be shared. Florida coalitions from Collier, Hillsborough, Manatee and Seminole counties are disseminating more than 40,000 drug deactivation pouches, manufactured by Deterra, and sparking conversations in their community with a wide array of stakeholders and helping to lessen the opioid abuse epidemic.
“We may not have control over drug dealers on the streets, but we do have control of our medicine cabinets,” said Debbie Owens, Executive Director, Seminole Prevention Coalition. “Seventy percent of our youth say they get prescription medication not prescribed for them from someone’s home medicine cabinet.”
“Focused efforts on dissemination of the pouches by Drug Free Manatee – Manatee County Florida’s substance abuse prevention coalition – resulted in the distribution of more than 6,000 disposal pouches across target populations (seniors, mobility challenged households, etc.) in less than three months. Such a quick, high impact, level of success reflects the coalition’s ability to strategically integrate the project into its current innovative approaches to reduce and prevent high rates of opioid/heroin overdoses, all designed in partnership with the Coalition’s many community collaborators,” said Rita Chamberlain, MBA, Associate Director/CFO, Manatee County Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition in Bradenton, Fla.
Also presenting are Cindy Grant, Executive Director Hillsborough County Anti-Drug Alliance and Melanie Black, Executive Director, Assistant Director, Drug Free Collier. The session will be moderated by CADCA’s Mary E. Elliott, Vice President, Communications, Membership and IT and Andrea de la Flor, Senior Manager, Evaluation and Research, CADCA’s National Coalition Institute.
CADCA’s Forum will be held at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center just outside of Washington, D.C. And don’t forget to join the conversation about our Forum on social media using the hashtag #CADCAForum. You can even tweet questions for the keynote speakers via Twitter during CADCA’s National Leadership Plenary on Tuesday, Feb. 2.
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