Jennifer Loeffler-Cobia, Justice and Public Health Policy and Practice Director at WestEd’s Justice & Prevention Research Center, will present at the Joint Meeting On Youth Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery held March 18-20, 2024, in Baltimore, Maryland. During this meeting, experts from around the country will convene to discuss pressing public health issues that impact our nation’s youth.
View details on WestEd’s presentation below.
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WestEd Session
Monday, March 18
Session: Helping Communities Address the Opioid Epidemic Through Systems Thinking: The Opioid Response Planning Checklist for Systems Thinking Readiness
Time: 1:00 p.m.–2:30 p.m.
Presenter: Jennifer Loeffler-Cobia
Description: Prevention efforts often operate in silos and fall to organizations that have access to populations of interest, like public health, justice, and education organizations. Unconnected prevention efforts by organizations have failed to reduce rates of opioid misuse, morbidity, and death.
Both research studies and practical expertise have emphasized the need for a more synergistic approach that includes the entire substance misuse ecosystem in developing common system-level mission, vision, resource sharing, and practices to achieve better outcomes and save lives. However, implementing a system thinking approach to prevention first requires understanding implementation readiness factors, including motivation to change, access to resources, skillsets, buy-in, and leadership.
This session will explore the prevention implementation readiness literature as it relates to effective outcomes, and present information about a new assessment tool, the Opioid Response Planning Checklist for Systems Thinking Readiness. This tool is designed to help leaders within an ecosystem gauge their readiness to implement a system thinking approach to prevention and a process to support and build capacity in high-risk and high-need communities in the adoption, implementation, and dissemination of effective strategies to prevent opioid overdose deaths.
Communication, adaptability, responsiveness, system culture, power dynamics, community demographics, and data practices are some of the components that will be discussed in the session.