Products and Resources Catalog

Our guests Patricia Gruits, Architect and Co-Executive Director at MASS Design Group, and Alejandra Cervantes, Director and Design Researcher, lead us in a thoughtful discussion that covers ways design can either hurt or heal, what it really means to engage the community that the space will ultimately serve, the tension between ensuring safety and being surveilled, and how leaders can navigate their own anxiety when, instead of pushing for action and taking charge, they need to “move at the speed of trust” by making space and time for exploring new perspectives and solutions, unleashing everyone’s creativity, really listening, and consistently nurturing relationships.

Join us for a heart-warming discussion about the innovative ways a nonprofit in Independence, Missouri, is supporting community belonging and well-being by offering warm hospitality, gorgeous food, delicious drinks, and welcoming space, all intentionally-sourced, mindfully prepared, and beautifully-presented. Our guests this time are Estela Gutierrez, Manager of BlendWell Community Cafe, and Jennifer Manuleleua, Senior Vice President of Community Development for Community Services League. They remind us that relationships really matter, intentionality is key, details make the difference, any product or service can be a tool for nurturing community resilience, and beauty and joy are important experiences for everyone.  

Animal lovers, activists, and all humans, don’t miss this episode! Our guests are Mark Churchill, Director, and Emily Harris, Case Manager, from Pawsperity: Pet Care That Unleashes Human Potential. In this engaging conversation, we discuss how TIC culture seeks to avoid re-traumatizing people and what to do when re traumatization happens, key practices for helping staff and leaders manage secondary trauma, the importance of implementing TIC at all levels of the organization (not just at the front line), the wide variety of trauma responses as well as the wide variety of ways to define success, and why giving up power in a situation can sometimes be the most powerful thing we can do.  

This time, our guests are Neal Long, Director of Learning at the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and Anne Manning, Deputy Director for Learning and Engagement at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. In this captivating conversation, we explore the role of art in healing and resilience, ways to be more innovative in providing support for groups of people, the importance of practicing humility when you know that you don’t know, striking a balance between beauty, comfort, and truth-telling, and curating experiences that foster choice, develop empathy, and provide care. You don’t have to be an artist to get something good out of this episode!  

Product Developed by the Contingency Management Task Force (CM Task Force) The Addiction Technology Transfer Center Network Coordinating Office (ATTC NCO) convened the Contingency Management Task Force (CM Task Force) in April 2023 at the request of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The purpose of this Contingency Management (CM) Task Force was to define the key components of CM that will facilitate consistent evidence-based training and implementation, and to scale CM in a manner that is meaningful, permissible, and scientific. The insights gathered will help SAMHSA’s [Training and Technical Assistance (TTA) Centers] to offer technical guidance, resources, partnerships, and infrastructure to support the expansion of CM to stakeholders in the field of addiction and recovery. This initial meeting is crucial in developing a shared vocabulary and an evidence based approach to CM education and training platforms, with the goal of incorporating metrics to measure effectiveness. Key information and components for facilitating CM TTA found in this report, include: 1. Key areas of considerations relating to implementation guidance (Section 2) 2. Recommendations pertaining to the development and rollout of implementation guidance (Section 3) 3. Proposed chapter titles and topics to be used in the possible development of a Contingency Management Implementation Guidance Document (Section 4) 4. Publicly available resources (Section 5) 5. Selected references (Section 6)

Join us for a fascinating conversation with our guests, Leslie Carto, External Media Communications Manager at University Health, and Eryn Realmuto, Internal Communications Manager at University Health, about the challenges of being trauma-sensitive in an industry designed to thrive by activating fear, opportunities to provide care for those who communicate stressful information as part of their jobs, and key tips for trauma-informed communication in any organization. Bonus: In this episode, one of our guests unexpectedly “turns the mic around” and asks the hosts to share how they each became involved in the field of Trauma Informed Care.  

Episode 2, with Chief Judge of the 31st Judicial District in Kansas, Honorable Daniel D. Creitz, and Director of Community Corrections & Kansas Department of Corrections Juvenile Services, Troy Smith If you’ve ever wondered what works better than punishment to reduce criminal activity, you will want to listen to this episode! Our guests, Chief Judge of the 31st Judicial District in Kansas, the Honorable Daniel D. Creitz, and Director of Community Corrections and Kansas Department of Corrections Juvenile Services, Troy Smith, share their work supporting persons with substance use disorders as they experience recovery, rekindle hope, and take their lives back. You’ll be inspired as they discuss what works, what doesn’t, what it takes to stay well yourself when working in a field with this much trauma exposure, and why it’s so important to continually celebrate successes, both large and small.  

In this episode, we talk with Lisa Charlson, Human Resources Organizational Development Educator, and Jackie Griffin, Senior Director of Guest Services, both with University Health, a Level-One Trauma Center located in the heart of Kansas City, Missouri and serving as both the urban-core, safety-net hospital and the teaching hospital for the University of Missouri-Kansas City. This conversation is filled with extremely practical advice for leaders, from leaders, including ways Trauma Informed Caring transforms conflict, how to have truly collaborative conversations even around difficult topics, and how to create compassionate culture that supports and includes absolutely every person your organization touches.  

    In this virtual panel presentation, the 2024 Hall of Fame Award Recipients from the Museum of African American Addictions, Treatment, and Recovery will participate in a panel presentation discussing the importance of providing culturally-responsive care and ways practitioners can be more effective when working with African American clients.     LEARNING OBJECTIVES: By the end of this presentation, you will be able to: Work more effectively with African American clients Better provide cross-cultural care when working with African American clients Be guided by research on best practices when providing culturally-responsive care in your work with African American clients Articulate effective harm reduction strategies for African Americans with substance use disorders     PANELISTS:    Corrie Vilsaint, PhD Dr. Vilsaint is the associate director of recovery health equity at the Recovery Research Institute and an instructor at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on addiction recovery capital, reducing discrimination among individuals in recovery, and racial health equity in remission and recovery. Dr. Vilsaint’s research is supported by the National Institute of Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol abuse and Alcoholism, and her work as a community psychologist has been awarded by the American Psychological Association.     Fred Dyer, PhD, LADC Dr. Dyer is a practitioner, presenter, consultant, and writer specializing in providing culturally responsive treatment for African American adolescents, emerging adults, and emerging adult refugees. Dr. Dyer has over 100 scholarly publications on the treatment of mental health, substance use disorders, and co-occurring disorders for African American adolescents and emerging adults. He is also the executive director of Hope Recovery Center and a recipient of the key to the city for Laurel, Mississippi—an honor award to him by the city’s mayor in recognition of his innovative consultations and trainings on culturally responsive services for African American teenage girls in the justice system.     Chyrell Bellamy, PhD, MSW Dr. Bellamy is a professor at Yale University's Department of Psychiatry, and she also serves as director of the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health, director of the Peer Support Services and Research, director of the Yale Lived Experience Transformational Leadership Academy, director of the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health. Dr. Bellamy also co-designs and conducts community-based participatory research with communities of color and people living with psychiatric Illness, substance use disorders, HIV, homelessness, and incarceration histories. Her research also focuses on healthcare disparities, sociocultural pathways of recovery, and the development of culturally responsive interventions.   Representative La Shawn Ford Representative Ford is the representative of the 8th District of Illinois. He is founder of The Westside Heroin and Opioid Taskforce which serves as an innovative strategic model for creating recovery-oriented systems of care in underserved communities across the nation. The taskforce has mobilized over 33 organizations to work together in the community to reduce overdose and promote recovery on the west side of Chicago. These partners include persons with lived experience; the formerly incarcerated; recovery community organizations, substance use disorders and mental health treatment providers; mobile treatment providers; hospitals; and harm reduction specialists. Last year, the taskforce's work resulted in 2,000 fewer emergency calls for overdose thanks to the training it provided to over 3,300 community residents on the distribution and use of Narcan. The Westside Heroin and Opioid Taskforce was awarded the winner of the 2023 SAMHSA Behavioral Health Equity Challenge. Thanks to his dedicated service and contributions to the behavioral healthcare field, Representative Ford was named as the recipient of the Illinois Chapter of NAADAC's Advocate of the Year award and the Nelson Mandela Award for Justice.    Dr. Felecia Pullen Dr. Pullen is a qualitative researcher exploring structural racism's impact on attaining recovery capital for people of color with histories of drug use. Her research has resulted in the creation of MRCAT, an assessment tool for professionals who develop recovery plans in partnership with clients. Dr. Pullen is also the president and CEO of three organizations: Let's Talk Safety, a not-for profit teen led prevention program; The Pillars, Manhattan's first OASIS-funded recovery community and outreach center; and The SAFETY Net, a teen-designed club house in Harlem. Dr. Pullen's policy advocacy and activism has been widely recognized. She has also delivered numerous workshops on culturally responsive recovery.         MODERATORS:   Mark Sanders, LCSW, CADC Mark Sanders is the Illinois state project manager for the Great Lakes ATTC, MHTTC and PTTC. He is an international speaker and behavioral health consultant whose presentations and publications have reached thousands throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, West Indies, Lithuania, and Guam. Mark is the recipient of four lifetime achievement awards, including NAADAC’s prestigious Enlightenment Award, the National Association for Addiction Professionals’ 50th Anniversary Legends Award, the Illinois Certification Board's Professional of the Year Award and Jessica Hayes Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Barbara Bacon Award for outstanding contributions to the social work profession as an alumnus of Loyola University of Chicago.    Kisha Freed, BA Kisha serves as an outreach program coordinator with CHESS BHE-TAC and has co-authored multiple blog series with Mark Sanders for the Great Lakes ATTC’s Counselors Corner blog. She is a certified professional coach with a special emphasis in emotional intelligence and mindful leadership. Utilizing her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Alabama-Birmingham, Kisha has worked in her community helping people to get in touch with suppressed emotions through the creative arts, such as poetry writing, storytelling and hip hop and emotional intelligence online workshops. She is also an event host, public speaker, and performing spoken word poetry. She resides in Huntsville, AL with her two sons and two-year old granddaughter.     The Great Lakes A/MH/PTTC is offering this training for individuals working in HHS Region 5: IL, IN, MI, MN, OH, WI. This training is being provided in response to a need identified by Region 5 stakeholders.

The audio recording from the webinar, “Peer Support: Why Your Program Needs It” (described above) is also available for download.

DESCRIPTION SAMHSA Region III, in partnership with the Central East Addiction Technology Transfer Center, is hosting a 90 minute virtual interactive training event to focus on workforce recruitment and retention. The featured speakers are the same content experts from Advocates for Human Potential who developed a Recruiting and Retention Toolkit for SAMHSA. The most relevant practical principles from the toolkit that have been updated will be presented. The speakers will showcase workforce planning and implementation strategies based on their extensive experience serving states, counties, providers and stakeholders. GUEST SPEAKERS  ADVOCATES FOR HUMAN POTENTIAL WORKFORCE EXPERTS: Richard Landis, MSW Co-Director, Training and Technical Assistance Fran Basche, MA Senior Program Director Susan Lange, MEd Senior Program Manager   SAMHSA SPEAKERS: Jean Bennett, PhD SAMHSA Regional Director Larke Huang, PhD Director, Office of Behavioral Health Equity

CRTIC: Pour a Cup of Tea and Sit With It    Episode 4, with Erika Holliday and Lauren Ragan Wilkerson   This episode features Erika Holliday, Substance Use Coordinator for the Unified Government (Kansas City, KS) Public Health Department, and Lauren Ragan Wilkerson, Board-Certified Music Therapist at the University of California-San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland. In this conversation, we challenged ourselves with questions that rarely have clear answers, and our guests offered both macro- and micro-level strategies for effecting change and maintaining well-being through it.  

SAMHSA has included Trauma-Informed Care among its designated best practices for many reasons. Trauma-Informed Care can bring about, not just change, but an actual transformation that takes place on many levels of an organization. This ongoing system-wide approach that is grounded in a scientific understanding of trauma can make service relationships much safer for both clients and staff, not only in SUD treatment facilities, but in all mental health settings. This easy-to-use and adaptable guide is designed to lead TTC consultants through the Trauma-Informed Care implementation process.

This free resource is designed to bring attention to the power of Language. Words are influential and have power they can heal, or they can harm. People often identify with roles and words that help them find meaning. Compassionate, stigma-free, person-first words play a role in helping everyone on their road to improved health and functioning. When we choose person-first language, we support their pursuit of healing, progress, and goals. We Can Make A Difference. The guide was created in collaboration by the National Family Support Technical Assistance Center, the National Federation of Families, the African American Behavioral Health Center of Excellence, the Center of Excellence for Behavioral Health Disparities on Aging, the Center of Excellence on LGBTQ+ Behavioral Health Equity, Severe Mental Illness Advisor, the National Alliance on Mental Health, and SAMHSA.

TIC What’s in Your Soil: The Power of Community Join us for a heart-felt, wide-ranging discussion with our guest, Kim Shaw-Ellis, and get inspired by the power of being seen, valued, and connected, the power of intentional focus on goodness andways we get that which we seek, and the power of collaborating to solve problems that impact our communities and each other in ways that transform pain into joy and healing.

The New England ATTC in partnership with the New England Association of Recovery Court Professionals hosted the webinar, “Team Dynamics in Treatment Courts” on November 17, 2021 from 12:00 to 1:30 with subject matter experts, Honorable John M. Julian, Michelle Verdieu-Williams, Stephen Von Sitas, MS, and Heather Scheiwe Kulp.  Treatment courts are successful because of the strong team approach to responding to client behavior. But, what happens when team members slip into old habits and the team struggles to consistently apply best practices? During this session, you will hear from team members on how to strengthen the team relationship, how to ensure each member understands their role on the team, and how to improve communication and collaboration on your teams.

The New England ATTC co-hosted the Recovery Science and Harm Reduction (RSHR) Reading Group meeting on November 18, 2021 from 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM. This discussion reviewed the article, “The science of recovery capital: Where do we go from here?”  View the November 2021 RSHR Reading group meeting summary that includes a brief article summary and key themes that arose in discussion with the participants.

The New England ATTC co-hosted the Recovery Science and Harm Reduction (RSHR) Reading Group meeting on October 21, 2021 from 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM. This discussion reviewed the article, “We are the researched, the researchers, and the discounted: The experiences of drug user activists as researchers.”  View the October 2021 RSHR Reading group meeting summary that includes a brief article summary and key themes that arose in discussion with the participants.

This video provides an overview of the New England ATTC's mission, catchment area, strategic operations, and strategic advice for other training and technical assistance centers. It was recorded as an orientation for new International TTCs but has broad relevance for all audiences interested in learning more about the New England ATTC. 

  New England ATTC team members Raymond Sanchez and Mika Salas have developed a new training, "Transitioning to Effective Online Training: Parts 1 – 3" in response to the COVID-19 pandemic requiring the workforce to transition to training virtually. This 3-part training is designed to help trainers use Zoom effectively to engage participants in virtual learning. It may be especially useful to ensure that trainings and technical assistance activities are accessible for individuals living in rural and underserved communities.  Part 1, “Getting to Know Zoom” is a pre-recorded session focused on basic to intermediate Zoom functions in order to build the foundational skills necessary to host, facilitate, and provide technical assistance for any virtual training, meeting, and/or conference. Part 2, “Advanced Zoom Functions and Best Practices” builds the specialized skills necessary to host and facilitate an engaging and secure virtual training. This training describes strategies, techniques, and resources to manage and engage participants in their ‘virtual classroom’ internal to Zoom. Part 3, “Engagement Strategies and Application” explores techniques and best practices to manage and engage participants in their virtual training sessions using both internal and external resources. Participants also have the opportunity to practice integrating these changes into their current curriculum. Due to the evolving nature of the Zoom platform, please note that these presentation slides are current as of May 26, 2021.  After this date, there may be updates to Zoom that are not reflected in these materials.  

These are the supplemental handouts from the Transitioning to Effective Online Training series. Provided in these handouts are general tools, tips, and best practices to help guide you (or your organization) in transitioning to and delivering online training. Most of the information included in this document comes from anecdotal experiences from the New England ATTC staff and trainers that have successfully transitioned their in-person training(s), national and regional conferences, webinars, and programs to a virtual format.

  An organizational tool to assess the needs, both internally and externally, around the culturally and linguistically appropriate services (CLAS) standards.

      This virtual presentation is sponsored by the Southeast ATTC Regional Center and will focus on the reasons addiction is considered a disease, challenge some of the ideas about substance use disorders that are prevalent in many faith communities, and also honor some of the many wonderful, effective ways that faith communities can help individuals on their path towards recovery in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina. Treatment providers, peer support communities, and community-based organizations in Region 4 are encouraged to register for free.   1.    Verbalize the prevalence of substance use disorders in the general United States population,  2.    Identify four criteria of any disease, 3.    Articulate two reasons choice and will power alone are not an effective strategy for recovery, 4.    Describe two ways faith communities can help support recovery. ======================================     James E. Campbell, LPC, LAC, MAC, CACII has worked professionally in the human services field for over twenty-five years in a wide range of clinical settings, currently serving as the Training and Technical Assistance Manager for Southeast Addiction Technology Transfer Center.  His passion is helping individuals and families heal and build on the strengths they possess.  He’s a member of both NAADAC and ACA and is a past president of APSC/SCAADAC.  James is a nationally recognized, author and speaker. 

          This virtual dialogue is sponsored by the Southeast ATTC Regional Center and will focus on how partnerships between primary care and behavioral health and comprehensive strategy can lead to health equity in underserved communities that are experiencing SUDs in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina.     Dominic Mack is a Professor of Family Medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) and serves as Director of the National Center for Primary Care (NCPC). Dr. Mack provides oversight of NCPC’s portfolio of big data health equity, health services, and HIT research. He leads the promotion of health equity through research, training, and application of innovative technology solutions that advance primary care systems to improve population health. He is founding director of the Georgia Health Information Technology Center (GA-HITEC) and Georgia Health Connect (GaHC) health information exchange and also directs Health Policy within the NIH Transdisciplinary Collaborative Center at MSM. Dr. Mack spent over 20 years practicing medicine and providing medical leadership in metropolitan Atlanta with many years of service in the Federally Qualified Health Center system. He works to develop national partnerships in rural and urban communities and takes a team-based approach to implement and sustaining community-based interventions for better outcomes. Current programs focus on progressing collaborative partnerships across communities to impact Diabetes and Substance Abuse outcomes. He is the founder and past president of Mack Medical Consultants, a for-profit company dedicated to the improvement of business practices in medical organizations.