Resources
71 Resources
Opioid-Overdose Reduction Continuum of Care Approach (ORCCA) Practice Guide
This guide includes (1) a menu of evidence-based practices spanning the continuum of care to reduce opioid overdose deaths and (2) real-word tips for implementing the evidence-based strategies. This guide was developed for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Technology Transfer Centers (TTC) program.
How to use the 72-hour methadone rule to administer methadone to patients in opioid withdrawal.
Long-Acting Injectable Buprenorphine
How to add or expand the availability of long-acting injectable buprenorphine in primary care, behavioral health, specialty substance use disorder, and recovery program settings.
Bridge Clinics in General Medical Settings
This quick guide explains the benefits of community "bridge" clinics. Bridge clinics expand access to methadone by treating opioid withdrawal with methadone for up to 72 hours and providing rapid referrals to outpatient treatment programs.
Establishing MOUD services for hospitalized patients
Starting medications for the treatment of opioid use disorder during hospitalization is associated with a reduction in substance use, improved treatment retention, and decreased hospital readmission. This guide instructs hospital administrators and staff on how to add or expand addiction consultation services.
MOUD Linkage and Retention Recovery Coach Training Manual
This manual provides resources used to train recovery coaches to implement programs that help individuals link to and stay retrained in MOUD treatment.
Learn about methadone, including answers to common questions or addressing commonly heard methadone myths.
Myths vs. Facts: MOUD in Pregnancy and Postpartum
This fact sheet corrects and clarifies common misconceptions about taking MOUD during pregnancy and postpartum.
Care Navigator Training Manual
This is a comprehensive training manual for two care navigation programs for delivering MOUD linkage and retention services created by HCS researchers in Kentucky in partnership with Bluegrass Care Navigators.
Hamilton County Advances Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder in Jail
People who start medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) prior to release from jail or prison and continue taking MOUD as they reenter their communities are 75% less likely to experience an overdose. Learn about a program championed by the sheriff's department and community partners in Hamilton County, Ohio, which ensures incarcerated individuals can access treatment prior to release.
Emergency Housing for Opioid Treatment
Providing emergency housing to support entry into and reentry from treatment for opioid use disorder: A behavioral health and law enforcement crisis responses team collaboration in Ulster County, New York.
Making Naloxone Available in Overdose Hotspots
A quick guide to planning and implementing community naloxone cabinets
Distributing Naloxone through Social Networks
Paid peer distributors can deliver naloxone to people in their social networks who are at risk of an overdose yet disconnected from overdose prevention services.
Leave-behind Naloxone programs allow public safety personnel to distribute naloxone to individuals who have experienced an overdose.
Overdose Education & Naloxone Distribution Outreach Manual (English)
This manual aims to guide community members and agencies in launching effective opioid overdose education and naloxone distribution outreach campaigns, drawing from lessons learned from HEALing Communities Study - Kentucky. It offers suggestions on staffing, venues, scheduling, materials, attire, and tracking efforts, acknowledging the uniqueness of each community's needs.
Overdose Education & Naloxone Distribution Outreach Manual (Spanish)
Educaci n sobre la sobredosis y la distribuci n de naloxona Manual de acercamiento
New York's Peer-led Overdose Education and Naloxone Distribution Programs Build Trust, Save Lives
In New York state, more than 1,000 overdose education and naloxone distribution (OEND) programs are educating citizens about how to prevent and respond to an overdose. Read about three examples of community-led programs that work to spread information about overdose and get naloxone into the hands of people at highest risk.
Overdose Recognition and Response for Bystanders
A printable trifold brochure that instructs bystanders on how to identify an opioid overdose, call for help, and administer naloxone and rescue breathing.
Cash Stipends for Peers Distributing Naloxone and Providing Harm Reduction Services
Providing cash stipends to peers (people with active drug use) to distribute naloxone and provide harm-reduction services within their social networks
EMS Naloxone Leave-Behind Program
Providing community members with naloxone via EMS Leave-Behind programs
Instruction sheet for prescribers to provide to patients when treating acute low back pain.
Instruction sheet for prescribers to provide to patients when treating acute sprains and strains.
Best practices guide for acute dental pain management and accompanying quick reference card.
Best practices guide for managing pain in primary care.
Primary Care Provider Tapering Guide
Quick reference card about tapering chronic opioid therapy, including risk/benefit assessment, when and how to taper, and patient monitoring.
Prescription opioid safety best practices guide for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians (CPE credit available until 12/31/24).
Quick reference card with methods of prescription opioid disposal and sample community flyer with opioid disposal information and locations.
Quick reference card with methods of prescription opioid disposal and sample community flyer with opioid disposal information and locations.
Primary Care Provider Naloxone Guide
Naloxone quick reference card for prescribers and other health professionals.
Quick reference card with non-opioid alternatives for chronic pain management and a checklist for prescribing opioids safely.
Partnering with Pharmacies for Medication Drop-Boxes
Using existing systems and collaborating with community pharmacy partners to create and promote medication drop-box/safe disposal locations.
Opioid Safety Patient Flyer (English)
Flyer for patients that describes how to take, store, and dispose of prescription opioids.
Opioid Safety Patient Flyer (Spanish)
Flyer for patients that describes how to take, store, and dispose of prescription opioids.
Engaging Community Coalitions To Decrease Opioid Overdose Deaths Practice Guide
This guide provides tips and tools for building and maintaining a community coalition that focuses on reducing opioid overdose deaths. This guide was developed for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Technology Transfer Centers (TTC) Program.
Using Community Listening Tours to Build a Diverse Coalition to Reduce Overdose Deaths
How a community listening tour helped build a diverse and representative coalition committed to reducing overdose deaths in Jefferson County, Kentucky.
Engaging People with Lived Experience through Photovoice
Engaging People with Lived Experience of Opioid Use through Photovoice in Belchertown and Ware, Massachusetts.
Utilizing a readiness assessment and coalition membership checklist to build and engage a coalition that aligns with the community's priorities, experience, and capacity for opioid overdose prevention in Rochester, New York.
Communities That HEAL intervention increases naloxone availability
Naloxone, the medication that can reverse an opioid-related overdose as it is happening, is often not available to people who need it. Supplying community members with naloxone will reduce opioid overdose deaths. HCS researchers learned that there were 79% more units of naloxone distributed in communities that received the intervention.
Over three-quarters of the drug overdose deaths in the U.S. involved fentanyl, a powerful opioid that is commonly mixed with stimulants like cocaine and methamphetamine (or meth). In recent years, rising amounts of people using opioids with other drugs has worsened the overdose crisis. HCS researchers found that in Communities That HEAL communities, there was a 37% reduction in overdose deaths from opioids mixed with stimulants like meth (not including cocaine).
There are many barriers that make if hard for people to access naloxone and medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD). Researchers from the HEALing Communities Study looked at whether the Communities That HEAL program reduced perceived barriers to accessing naloxone and MOUD and found that local leaders perceived fewer barriers to adding these medications in nontraditional settings.
Community stigma is a barrier to treatment for people with opioid use disorder. HCS investigators learned that leaders championing opioid-reduction efforts in communities that received the Communities That HEAL intervention saw a significant decline in community stigma compared with those that had not received the intervention.
The HEALing Communities Study set an ambitious goal to decrease overdose deaths through evidence-based practices; although the statistics didn't show changes in communities in the short-term, the study successfully put into action more than 600 evidence-based practices to communities that received the Communities That HEAL intervention. This summary of a scientific article explains the impact of the study on overdose deaths.
How to Build Relationships with Your Local Media
How to hold brief, structured meetings with media representatives to build an effective and respectful relationship with them.
How to Create Your Communication Campaign's Distribution Plan
Develop distribution or promotion plans to get campaign messages more effectively in front of the people you care about most.
How to Pitch, Place, and Leverage Op-Eds, Letters to the Editor, and Alternative Digital Content
Plan, draft, and submit print and digital content to the media that draws their attention to your work.
How to Plan and Organize Your Communications Around Key Topics and Events
Using a Campaign Calendar to Organize Your Community's Activities
How to Assess Campaign Progress in Communities and Identify Potential Enhancements
Ideas and tools to regularly assess campaign implementation and activities among your coalition and partners.
How to Create Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Video and Audio Materials
Best practices for creating materials to share through social media, websites, community presentations, and radio or TV public service announcements.
Building Sustainable Opioid Overdose Communications Beyond HCS
The HCS identified seven critical steps to help communities sustain communication efforts once funding for an intervention ends.
Navigating the Fundamentals Post-HCS. How to transition ownership of campaign messaging and resources to local platforms, and secure funding for continued communication work.
This document provides important guidance for communities on how to create and disseminate messages related to naloxone. The goal is to increase demand for naloxone and reduce the stigma around using it
This document provides important guidance for communities on how to create and disseminate messages related to naloxone. The goal of the communication campaign is to reduce the stigma surrounding opioid use disorder (OUD). Results from message testing point toward continuing to focus on medication for OUD (MOUD) and the stigma that surrounds offering, seeking, and staying on MOUD for at least 6 months.
Stay in MOUD Treatment Message Guidance
This document provides important guidance for communities on how to create and disseminate messages related to naloxone. The goals of the communication campaign are to increase the number of people who stay on medication treatment for 6 months or more and increase support for MOUD treatment retention.
COVID: The Urgency of Treating Opioid Use Disorder in the Time of COVID-19: Care Without Fear
When the COVID-19 pandemic first swept the country, the medical community was faced with the need to quickly respond to a specific urgent public health crisis, but it resulted in reduced attention to other health challenges, including opioid use disorder (OUD) and the risk of overdose.
Fentanyl Mixed with Stimulants
This media backgrounder presents key facts and evidence-based strategies to mitigate overdose deaths associated with fentanyl-contaminated stimulants.
How Addiction Changes the Brain
Opioids and other drugs interfere with the way neurons send, receive, and process signals via the brain's neurotransmitters, leading to abnormal messages being sent through the network.
Medications for Opioid Use Disorder Media Backgrounder
Studies show that people with opioid use disorder who stop taking opioids, even under the guidance of a health care provider, are very likely to return to using the drug (relapse). There are three FDA approved medications that can lower the risk of relapse and overdose.
How stigma sabotages treatment and access to effective treatment.
HCS Clear Communications Tip Sheets
The Clear Communications Tip Sheets provide information on plain language and clear communication standards, readability calculators, how to select suitable imagery, and how to avoid triggering or stigmatizing language.
Toolkit For Preventing Opioid Overdoses At Your Organization
The Organizational Toolkit describes the various ways that businesses, faith-based organizations, schools and universities, nonprofits, and other community-based organizations can provide valuable support to prevention, treatment, and recovery efforts in their communities.
The following social media toolkit contains ready-to-use social media content with graphics to spread public awareness of the stigma of medications for opioid use disorder.
The following social media toolkit contains ready-to-use social media content with graphics to spread public awareness of the dangers of fentanyl.
Ohio Naloxone Social Media Toolkit
The following social media toolkit contains ready-to-use social media content with graphics to spread public awareness of naloxone.
The overarching goal of Phase 0 is to learn about the state of the opioid overdose crisis in your community and prepare to collaborate with local coalitions and other community partners to implement the Communities That HEAL intervention.
Phase 1: Getting Started Road Map
During Phase 1, coalition members will draft and approve a charter that describes their and roles and responsibilities. The coalition will also fill key leadership roles and review the Opioid-Overdose Reduction Continuum of Care Approach (ORCCA), a menu of evidence based strategies for responding to the opioid crisis.
Phase 2: Getting Organized Road Map
In Phase 2, your community coalition will review and discuss the menu of evidence-based strategies and develop a process for selecting the strategies to be implemented. Your coalition will also consider whether you?d like to create a communications campaign to raise public awareness or understanding of your overdose reduction efforts. Finally, during this phase, your coalition will identify needs and gaps in knowledge that can be addressed by bringing in technical expertise and additional resources
Phase 3: Community Profiles and Data Dashboards Road Map
Phase 3 focuses on collaborative development of a community-tailored profile and data dashboard. The data collected in Phase 3 will inform community action planning. This Road Map defines the process for developing and implementing both the profiles and dashboards.
Phase 4: Community Action Planning Road Map
The overarching goal of Phase 4 are for coalitions to (1) set clear goals related to reducing opioid overdoses and (2) select ORCCA strategies that advance those goals. Goals and selected ORCCA strategies should address the service gaps identified in community profiles.
Phase 5: Implementation and Monitoring Road Map
In Phase 5, coalitions will work with partners to develop implementation plans and implement selected ORCCA strategies. During this implementation phase, coalition members and partners will monitor progress, share lessons learned, and obtain technical assistance as needed. Coalitions will also work to expand and monitor communication campaign activities.
Phase 6: Sustainability Planning Road Map
In Phase 6, coalitions will develop a sustainability plan. The goal is to implement evidence-based strategies for reducing opioid overdoses by using and building upon the existing infrastructure in your community. Your coalition may decide to integrate these evidence-based strategies with existing substance use intervention models or community health planning processes, such as Communities That Care, Community Health Needs Assessments, or Community Health Improvement Plans.