Iowa Ag Connection - Opioid Prevention Workshop Draws Community Leaders

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Opioid Prevention Workshop Draws Community Leaders
Iowa Ag Connection - 09/18/2018

One hundred and twenty community leaders from 30 Iowa counties -- including mayors, legislative staffers, health agency leaders and court administrators -- attended the "Planning to Take Action against Opioids in Your Community" workshop, Sept. 12, in Ames.

Participants returned to their communities equipped with community toolkits to assist them in reaching various age groups with substance misuse prevention programming.

The workshop hosted by the Iowa State University PROSPER Rx project received support from a Rural Health and Safety Education grant from the USDA's National Institute on Food and Agriculture as well as the Midwest Counterdrug Training Center.

"PROSPER" stands for "PROmoting School-community-university Partnerships to Enhance Resilience," an evidence-based prevention model developed at Iowa State that has been shown to lower rates of substance misuse -- including misuse of prescription opioids -- among rural youth and young adults.

The PROSPER delivery system links the USDA Extension and Outreach System with public schools and community-based teams to impact risk and protective factors known to influence substance abuse.

Building capacity to combat and prevent opioid misuse is an aim of the PROSPER Rx project at Iowa State, directed by Lisa Schainker, a scientist at the Partnerships in Prevention Science Institute in the College of Human Sciences. The project is helping community partners build networks -- and will provide coaching support to increase the capacity of ISU Extension and Outreach professionals to build and maintain community prevention systems to combat the opioid epidemic.

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