Products and Resources Catalog

Whether starting a new coalition, or revitalizing and reorganizing a current coalition, it’s important to understand the elements of a coalition that will support the coalition’s capacity in achieving their anticipated outcomes.  The Coalition Annual Report Template Workbook is designed to assist coalitions in organizing their efforts, based upon the Six Elements of Effective Coalitions.  Please use this workbook in conjunction with: The Supplemental Tutorial Video  The Six Elements of Effective Coalitions Handout

Conducting a strong needs assessment is the foundation for developing a successful prevention plan. However, no needs assessment is ever complete. To identify gaps and strengthen on-going data collection for your needs assessment, the Prevention Technology Transfer Center (PTTC) Data-Informed Decisions Working Group has designed this checklist. The checklist is organized by the six (6) core data areas of the Strategic Planning Framework: consequences, consumption, target populations, intervening variables (i.e. risk and protective factors), prevention resources, and community readiness. Data should be as local as possible, but include data from neighboring counties, state, regional, or national data for comparison purposes. For help on addressing your identified data gaps, contact your PTTC for training and technical assistance.

Conducting a strong needs assessment is the foundation for developing a successful prevention plan. The Prevention Technology Transfer Center (PTTC) Data-Informed Decisions Working Group has designed this review sheet to support addressing data gaps through primary data collection. It provides several methods and select resources as a starting point for prevention team’s planning. These methods can involve varied means of data collection, including oral narratives, written text, photographs, video, and others.

The NeCPTTC has created a Sustainability Planning Toolkit to help prevention specialists produce and maintain positive substance misuse outcomes. This toolkit guides professionals in evaluating their strategic planning processes and interventions in order to determining what needs to be sustained and the best way to do so. The toolkit offers a five-step sustainability planning process to help communities move from understanding to action, and to identify and secure the resources needed to maintain positive prevention outcomes beyond current funding. The steps include setting sustainability goals, selecting your sustainability approach, identifying needed resources, collaboration and partnership mapping, and developing your sustainability outreach approach. For each of these five steps, the toolkit provides a supplemental worksheet to help practically guide individuals and organizations through this planning process. The toolkit is now available for your use. You may access all the pieces below: Sustainability Planning Toolkit Sustainability Planning Checklist Tool 1 Setting Sustainability Goals Tool 2 Selecting Your Sustainability Approach Tool 3 Identifying Needed Resources Tool 4 Collaboration and Partnership Mapping  Tool 5 Developing Your Sustainability Outreach Approach 

The Northeast and Caribbean Prevention Technology Transfer Center (PTTC) developed this collection of resources to support the New York Office of Addiction Services and Supports in its effort to build an effective prevention response in the new environment of legal adult use of cannabis. This is not an exhaustive collection of available materials, but rather a selection of high–quality, science-based and fact-focused educational sessions, training materials and presentations on the public health implications of adult recreational cannabis/marijuana use and historic evolution of policies and impacts. While compiled for NY, this resource contains non-state specific information and will be useful for prevention professionals in any region.  Click here to download the resource.

The purpose of this worksheet is to help entities to identify where current and proposed regulations and policies are strong and where more specific prevention-informed approaches may be needed. This worksheet can be used as a supplemental tool in conjunction with the Northwest PTTC report, Alcohol Regulatory Systems: Integrating Support for Public Health and Safety and A Prevention Practitioners' Toolkit to Understanding HHS Region 10 State Cannabis Policies and Regulations. Directions: Check the areas impacted by the law/rule and note strengths and areas for improvement. The final section provides a look at broader impact areas.   The Policy Analysis Worksheet is a part of two Toolkits: View other resources available in the Alcohol Awareness Toolkit: #ProofIsInTheNumbers. View HHS R10, Cannabis Toolkit Resources

Assessing and Sharpening Advanced Skills:  A Tool for Prevention Workforce Assessment Accurate and consistent workforce capacity assessment is critical to the success of prevention systems. This toolkit measures the skills expected of advanced prevention practitioners using a behaviorally-based and fully operationalized rating scale. The toolkit can be used to identify the gaps in workforce capacity that are barriers to achieving desired prevention outcomes. It aims to empower prevention system leadership to better target training and technical assistance offerings and to fine-tune the types and amount of guidance and feedback provided to the field. Workforce Assessment Toolkit Technical Assistance Request Substance use and misuse prevention organizations located in the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas are eligible to receive intensive virtual technical assistance (TA) on how to utilize the Advanced Prevention Workforce Assessment Toolkit from a South Southwest PTTC associate. Please follow the link below to complete the TA request form. A South Southwest PTTC staff member will respond to your request within 10 business days. TA Request Form

This tool is serving prevention specialists that want to establish positive relationships with South West Asian, Northern African (SWANA) populations and those who are already working with this population and want to improve their cultural humility. The goal of this product is to help lessen the barriers that prevention specialists and SWANA populations may face when discussing substance misuse and addiction. Covered in this tool are geography of SWANA populations within new England, linguistics to consider, substances specific to this population, risk and protective factors, and New England state-specific resources for people who identify as a part of SWANA with whom prevention specialist may want to connect. This tool was written in the spring of 2021, during a time of increasing cultural awareness and humility which when incorporated into all aspects of life will benefit everyone.    This resource is specific to the New England region which includes Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont. This tool speaks to some specific cultural aspects of SWANA people, often referred to as the Middle Eastern region, discussed further in the Linguistic section.

In this tool, you can see how you can use each step to inform your practices. Feel free to use this map with stakeholders, a coalition, or community members to explain the process and how you'll use this tool. At the end of this guide, there is a survey that you can use with your organization, coalition, or group to assess your strengths and areas of growth. The New England PTTC will create a report from your organization-specific data which you can share with your team to assess what areas you may want to focus your work around diversity and inclusion. You may return to this tool when you have determined which areas you want to work on for thoughts on what you might do to improve.   Prevention specialists make a commitment to serving the community. To serve a community fully and equitably, the prevention specialist must recognize that not all parts of the community receive prevention messaging and programing the same way. In order to reach all the diverse parts of your population, you must make intentional efforts to identify, understand, and speak to the full variety of people you serve.

This resource is adapted by the New England PTTC from a resource created in partnership with the Maine Prevention Workforce Development Workgroup, convened by AdCare Educational Institute of Maine under contract with the Maine Center for Disease Control. It aims to meet universal developmental training needs of the substance misuse prevention workforce in New England. This resource is not specific to any one funding source or program. This resource can be used by new preventionists entering the field working in any federal, state, or locally funded prevention coalition, organization, or initiative. With this resource, the New England PTTC hopes to provide a strong science-based overview of the field for new professionals to assist them in getting through the orientation phase and into the work they came to do more quickly, and with a shared perspective throughout the region. Specific substance use prevention initiatives likely have their own onboarding process and tools that are program-specific. This resource is offered to supplement these program specific trainings, and give a scope of the prevention field. This document is a living document that will change as the field of substance use prevention changes within the state, regionally, and nationally.  Prevention specialists are welcome to return to this document at any point to review 101 level concept and ideas. This document is interactive in that almost every graphic is clickable to bring you to an in-depth and reliable resource to learn more about the discussed topic. Many words are underlined to help break complex topics down into more details, as well. These links will be updated as this document is updated if more timely research or data is found within the field.    For Prevention Directors and Supervisors The Prevention Domain Video Series, along with the New England Prevention Specialist Onboarding and Orientation Roadmap, can be very helpful resources for when you are onboarding new employees to your organization who are brand new to the field of prevention. Both the roadmap and video series provides a well-rounded, and evidence-based, overview of what it means to be a prevention professional. This video series was purposefully crafted to provide both the factual information about each of the competencies, but also some great stories and anecdotes to illustrate what these look like in action. We encourage you to weave these into the onboarding process for your new prevention professionals.    About the product: This productwas developed to address a need identified in HHS Region 1 (ME, NH, VT, MA, CT, RI) to provide substance misuse prevention professionals with tools for substance misuse prevention.      Browse the New Prevention Specialist Credentialing Interactive Map from the PTTC Network Coordinating Office & The International Certification & Reciprocity Consortium (IC&RC). 

April is National Alcohol Awareness Month. To raise awareness about alcohol-related harms and the importance of alcohol policy safeguards, we have launched the Alcohol Awareness Toolkit: #ProofIsInTheNumbers. The Alcohol Awareness Toolkit seeks to do the following during the month of April: Raise awareness about alcohol-related harms and the importance of strong alcohol policies using memes, and Encourage engagement from prevention and public health stakeholders to strategically educate and inform decision makers about effective alcohol policies by providing easy-to-personalize, templated opinion editorials, letters to legislators and proclamations.   The Northwest PTTC is excited to bring these resources to communities in Region 10 and throughout the rest of the PTTC Network. We encourage our prevention partners to use the materials to raise awareness around the weekly themes to observe April as National Alcohol Awareness Month.   View the other resources available in this toolkit.

April is National Alcohol Awareness Month. To raise awareness about alcohol-related harms and the importance of alcohol policy safeguards, we have launched the Alcohol Awareness Toolkit: #ProofIsInTheNumbers. The Alcohol Awareness Toolkit seeks to do the following during the month of April: Raise awareness about alcohol-related harms and the importance of strong alcohol policies using memes, and Encourage engagement from prevention and public health stakeholders to strategically educate and inform decision makers about effective alcohol policies by providing easy-to-personalize, templated opinion editorials, letters to legislators and proclamations.   The Northwest PTTC is excited to bring these resources to communities in Region 10 and throughout the rest of the PTTC Network. We encourage our prevention partners to use the materials to raise awareness around the weekly themes to observe April as National Alcohol Awareness Month.   View the other resources available in this toolkit.

This onboarding toolkit, created by the New England PTTC in partnership with the Maine Prevention Workforce Development Workgroup, aims to meet the universal developmental training needs of the substance misuse prevention workforce in Maine. While this is not a comprehensive document, it provides a strong overview of the field for new substance misuse prevention professionals in Maine to assist them in getting through the orientation phase and into the work of prevention more quickly and with a shared perspective throughout the state. This resource is not specific to any one funding source or program. This resource can be used by those working under Drug Free Community Grants, Maine Prevention Services, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as other substance misuse prevention-focused organizations, to support new preventionists as they enter the field. Specific substance use prevention initiatives likely have their own onboarding process and tools that are program-specific, and this resource is offered to supplement these program-specific trainings and give a scope of the prevention field statewide. This resource may also be helpful to prevention specialists who are the only person within their organization with a focus on prevention.    This toolkit is a living document that will change as the field of substance use prevention changes within the state, regionally, and nationally. The most current document can be found at the New England PTTC website. This document is interactive in that almost every graphic is clickable to bring you to an in-depth and reliable resource to learn more about the discussed topic. Many underlined words are links to help break complex topics down into more details, as well. These links will be updated as this document is updated if more timely research or data becomes available.    This resource is intended for Maine professionals in HHS Region 1.

  Resource Summary: The Northeast & Caribbean PTTC developed this User Guide for substance misuse prevention professionals working in agencies and coalitions as a set of practical tools to support the implementation of three foundational environmental prevention strategies—policy, enforcement, and media. Working together, these strategies have been shown to be effective in reducing substance misuse by changing the conditions of a community—that it, by creating an environment that makes it easier for individuals to make healthy lifestyle choices. Because effective implementation begins with planning, this resource contains a collection of worksheets, brainstorming questions, and checklists practitioners can use to guide their planning efforts.   Click here to download resource

Resource Summary: This worksheet was developed for prevention practitioners and community coalition members by the Northeast and Caribbean Prevention Technology Transfer Center to accompany the webinar series Addressing Emerging Prevention Priorities with a Health Equity Lens. This resource includes survey questions which prevention practitioners can use to solicit member feedback on their experiences and how well coalition processes and procedures create a culturally welcoming, engaging, and responsive environment for members to work together.   Click here to download resource

Resource Summary: This tip sheet, designed for prevention practitioners and coalition members, reviews key strategies and questions that can be used to learn about and develop a meaningful relationship and practical and important roles for individuals or organizations to recruit as potential coalition members or partners. This resource was developed for prevention practitioners and community coalition members by the Northeast and Caribbean Prevention Technology Transfer Center to accompany the webinar series Addressing Emerging Prevention Priorities with a Health Equity Lens.   Click here to download resource

Resource Summary: This worksheet was developed for prevention practitioners and community coalition members by the Northeast and Caribbean Prevention Technology Transfer Center to accompany the webinar series Addressing Emerging Prevention Priorities with a Health Equity Lens. This worksheet is designed to help prevention staff to effectively assess their strategies to engage community partners, as well as to develop a plan for increasing community engagement, in a way that will help the coalition increase their reach and impact on substance use by beginning with a focus on health equity. Click here to download resource

Resource Summary: This resource was developed for prevention practitioners and community coalition members by the Northeast and Caribbean Prevention Technology Transfer Center to accompany the webinar series Addressing Emerging Prevention Priorities with a Health Equity Lens. This worksheet will help prevention practitioners cultivate a broader way to assess the experiences and characteristics of potential partners that will build coalition capacity to meet the needs of populations most at risk.   Click here to download resource

Resource Summary: This tip sheet is designed to help prevention practitioners incorporate culturally competent practices, policies, and strategies that increase the effectiveness of their coalition’s interventions and collaborative efforts. This resource was developed for prevention practitioners and community coalition members by the Northeast and Caribbean Prevention Technology Transfer Center to accompany the webinar series Addressing Emerging Prevention Priorities with a Health Equity Lens. Click here to download resource

Research demonstrates that many risk and protective factors influence both substance misuse and one or more mental health concerns. Addressing these shared factors can increase your overall impact on improving community health and wellness. This annotated bibliography reviews some of this research, and was used to inform one section of the guidance document Demystifying Data: Gathering and Using Local Risk and Protective Factor Data for Prevention.  

Data are vital for defining your community's problems or needs (e.g., opioid misuse, underage drinking). Data also help us determine if there are specific populations who are disproportionately impacted by the problems or needs. Risk and protective factors help determine why a community may be experiencing a particular problem or need. Data help guide our decision making and action planning. The purpose of this guidance document is to provide a general overview on gathering and using risk and protective factor data to guide prevention efforts. This document will review strategies to gather and prioritize risk and protective factor data, as well as how to use these data in prevention planning. Also check out the annotated bibliography used to create the section on shared risk and protection included in this document.   

The purpose of this document is to provide the prevention workforce in Federal Region 10 states (Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington) with information that supports the following: Prevention of youth cannabis use Prevention of adult cannabis misuse (heavy use and/or risky behaviors)   The information in this tool is intended to support capacity development specifically within the prevention workforce by increasing understanding of cannabis regulatory frameworks and policies that can affect prevention of youth cannabis use and harms. This includes by answering questions that Region 10’s prevention workforce may have:   What is cannabis regulation? This report provides information so stakeholders understand who makes policies and what kinds of policies are included in each of the four Region 10 states.   Why are specific policies important for prevention? Key components of cannabis regulatory frameworks, and how each is relevant to prevention, are discussed. Because cannabis regulation is so new, some of what we think is important for prevention is related to research about regulations for tobacco and alcohol.   What is in place in my community right now, and is it good enough? This section describes the current status of each state’s prevention-related cannabis regulations as of June 30, 2020.  Important considerations in assessing regulatory content and advocating for prevention-supportive approaches include how regulations affect vulnerable populations and the potential for unintended consequences. Notably, some local areas (cities, counties, boroughs, or villages) have already passed additional regulations; these are not included in the scope of the report, however, understanding specific state regulations, including what additional regulation is allowed locally, is a starting point for assessing the status in any specific community.   What other options exist? The existing regulations in other states may offer ideas about what is possible to strengthen cannabis regulations. This report also discusses potential policies from research on tobacco and alcohol.   What comes next? Within the discussion about regulatory areas, emerging regulatory issues are also identified. These are topics that community advocates may want to anticipate and become prepared to address, whether they are intended to strengthen or weaken regulations.   View the other resources available in this toolkit.

This document provides a summary of Washington’s rules and laws to regulate cannabis, and provides the prevention workforce in Washington with information that supports: Prevention of youth cannabis use Prevention of adult cannabis misuse (heavy use and/or risky behaviors)   The information is organized into six sections. First, a description of the regulatory bodies that create and oversee the regulatory system; then regulatory components organized as “5 Ps for Prevention.” These elements of regulation are most relevant to preventing any cannabis use by youth and unsafe use by adults.   View the other resources available in this toolkit.

This document provides a summary of Alaska’s rules and laws to regulate cannabis, and provides the prevention workforce in Alaska with information that supports: Prevention of youth cannabis use Prevention of adult cannabis misuse (heavy use and/or risky behaviors)   The information is organized into six sections. First, a description of the regulatory bodies that create and oversee the regulatory system; then regulatory components organized as “5 Ps for Prevention.” These elements of regulation are most relevant to preventing any cannabis use by youth and unsafe use by adults.   View the other resources available in this toolkit.