Western Pennsylvania has experienced an epidemic of heroin and opioid abuse in the past 8-10 years. According to 2020 CDC data, Pennsylvania had the eighth-highest drug overdose mortality rate in the U.S. A consortium of the Armstrong-Indiana-Clarion Drug and Alcohol Commission (AICDAC) and nine partners created the Nurse Navigator and Recovery Specialist Outreach Program to […]
peer support
Building Healthy Habits in 2022 Toolkit
Since the pandemic started, experts have warned of a mental health crisis facing American children. That is now playing out at schools in the form of increased childhood depression, anxiety, panic attacks, eating disorders, fights, and thoughts of suicide at alarming levels, according to interviews with teachers, administrators, education officials, and mental health experts. Mentally […]
The Ambassador Toolkit: Take Action Against Teen Dating Violence
FUTURES’ award-winning, national public education initiative, That’s Not Cool, has released a new resource: the Ambassador Toolkit. That’s Not Cool is an award-winning national public education campaign managed by FUTURES to engage young people online around healthy relationships and the prevention of digital abuse. The program’s interactive website, tools, and resources support young people as […]
keepin’ it REAL
keepin’ it REAL (kiR) is a scientifically proven, effective substance use prevention and social and emotional competency enhancing program designed to focus on the competencies linked to preventing substance use and abuse. Featured as a cost-effective and powerful program by the U.S. Surgeon General in 2016, this program is based on the real stories of […]
The Provider’s Handbook on Developing & Implementing Peer Roles
Part of what makes implementing ‘peer’ roles so very challenging is that they aren’t very well understood by the providers who are trying to implement them, or even by the people who are applying to work in those newly created roles. All too often, positions that are getting called ‘peer’ end up being the same […]
Helping People Connect to the Religious Congregations and Spiritual Groups of Their Choice: The Role of Peer Specialists
The Temple Collaborative has published a monograph exploring the roles that peer specialists can play in helping the people they serve to connect to the mainstream religion congregations and spiritual groups of their choice. Part of a series of documents that explore the roles that peer specialists play promoting community inclusion of service recipients in a […]