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Regional Center Hosted Events
The Great Lakes ROTA-RC offers a virtual learning community featuring opioid & other substance use, as well as mental health, treatment, recovery and harm reduction education events for professionals, para-professionals, volunteers, and students in a variety of fields supporting the Great Lakes community. These virtual learning opportunities will be hosted by Great Lakes ROTA-RC’s Cooperative Extension partners in Region 5, and feature a range of experienced professionals. Find out more, and get registered below. Not on our mailing list? Sign up HERE
An Overview of the Opioid Overdose Crisis and its Impact on our Communities
Opioid use is a complex problem that affects many people. The purpose of this general overview training is to increase community members’ and professionals’ awareness of opioids and the opioid overdose crisis, how it has impacted communities, strategies to save lives, and what recovery looks like for people who use drugs.
Learning Objectives:
- Participants will learn what opioids are, how they affect the body, and why people use opioids.
- Participants will be able to identify person-first and non-stigmatizing language to discuss substance use.
- Participants will learn how the opioid overdose crisis has impacted communities and what they can do to save lives and promote recovery for those who want and need it.
Presenters: Tanner Derror, Abby Cudney, and Elizabeth Williams
Date: Thursday, May 30, 2024
Time: 1:00-2:30 PM CST/ 2:00-3:30 PM EST
Location: online webinar
Please contact Lauren Kennedy (kenne552@msu.edu) with any questions
Reimagining Recovery
3 Part Series
This webinar series explores the structural, social, and root determinants of health, limitations of the brain disease model of addiction, and how criminalizing and punitive approaches to substance use are both normalized and exacerbating the overdose crisis. Presenters will highlight regional trends in opioid use, emphasize non-punitive strategies to support people who use drugs and/or are living in recovery, including harm reduction, and describe ways that communities can better support people who use drugs and their families. Participants will be encouraged to reimagine their roles and efforts in prevention, treatment, and recovery, to be more aligned with principles of health equity and justice.
Presenters: Tanner Derror, Lauren Kennedy, and Elizabeth Williams
Date: Thursdays, June 6, 13, and 20, 2024
Time: 1:00-2:30 PM CST/ 2:00-3:30 PM EST
Location: online webinar
Please contact Lauren Kennedy (kenne552@msu.edu) with any questions
Addressing the Stress, the Social Determinants of Health, and Resilience in Rural Communities: A Call to Action
Coming Soon…
Presenter: Brenda Mack
Date: Tuesday, June 18, 2024
Time: 10:00-11:15 AM CST/ 11:00-12:15 PM EST
Location: online webinar
Please contact Kelly Cabral (cabral.48@osu.edu) with any questions
Working with Pregnant and Parenting People Who Use Drugs
Coming Soon…
Presenters: Dr. Cara Poland and Dr. Jonathan Stoltman
Date: Wednesday, July 10, 2024
Time: 9:00-10:30 AM CST/ 10:00-11:30 AM EST
Location: online webinar
Please contact Amanda Coorough (amanda.coorough@wisc.edu) with any questions
Changing Families, Changing Outcomes: Compassionate Responses to Substance Use in the Family
An overview of why families matter, and some simple things that we can do immediately to help families respond with intention through this process.
More coming soon…
Presenters: Pam Lanhart from Thrive! Family Recovery Resources
Date: TBD
Time: TBC
Location: online webinar
Harm Reduction Public Health Vending Machines
This event is awaiting data review by Tribal Legislation in Minnesota through the partnership with the University of Minnesota and the Federally Recognized Tribal Nations within Minnesota. It will be rescheduled once the review is completed and the data is released for public consumption.
Join us for a webinar about an innovative way to reduce the harms of substance use and overdose: public health vending machines. These machines provide the community with access to harm reduction supplies, including sterile injection equipment, naloxone, and drug testing strips. This webinar will describe
- The state of the science on public health vending machines
- Installation of public health vending machines in northern Minnesota in collaboration with the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa.
- Lessons learned implementing machines
Presenters: Sean Allen, Laura Palombi, Pamela Hughes
Date: To be rescheduled
Time: TBC
Location: online webinar
About the Presenters
Tanner Derror, MPH Tanner is a health educator for District 9 based in the Midland office. He provides health promotion programming for Midland, Bay, Saginaw, Shiawassee, and Genesee counties in Michigan. Tanner graduated with his bachelor’s degree in psychology from the Frederik Meijer Honors College at Grand Valley State University in 2018. While attending Grand Valley, he worked with the University Counseling Center as a Peer Educator to promote mental health and social justice initiatives on campus. He then received his Master of Public Health degree from the Health Behavior and Health Education program at the University of Michigan School of Public Health in 2021. Tanner has a special interest in addressing stress, loneliness, and adverse childhood experiences.
Elizabeth Williams, M.Ed. Liz is a health educator housed in Genesee County. Counties of Primary Responsibility: Genesee, Saginaw, Shiawassee, Bay, and Midland. Liz offers a variety of disease prevention and community behavioral health programs. She has a specific interest in nutrition, physical activity, sleep health and substance use disorder. Before her work as a health educator, she worked as a community nutrition instructor for MSU Extension, delivering SNAP- Ed nutrition education in Genesee County. She received her Master’s in Community Health Education from Wayne State University and her Bachelor’s in Family Studies with a concentration on Substance Abuse Education: Prevention, Intervention, and Treatment from Central Michigan University.
Abigail Cudney is a Health Educator for Michigan State University Extension. She teaches programs in response to Michigan’s emerging mental health and substance use needs, including those related to stress, trauma, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and the opioid crisis. Abigail earned both her bachelor’s degree and master’s degree from Michigan State University in Human Development and Family Studies. Abigail is a licensed social worker in Michigan and was trained in the very first cohort of Community Champions by the Michigan ACE Initiative She is a certified instructor for Mental Health First Aid and offers a diverse portfolio of educational health programs for adult audiences.
Lauren Kennedy, Ph.D. Dr. Lauren Kennedy is an Extension Specialist in Community Behavioral Health with the MSU Extension Health and Nutrition Institute. Her role includes building Extension’s capacity to improve health equity in our communities by contextualizing individual health behaviors and outcomes within broader socioecological systems and structures. She studies and develops ways that traditional Extension delivery models and practices can be enhanced through use of implementation science frameworks, critical race theory, and authentic community engagement. She brings more than 15 years of experience in developing, implementing, and evaluating community health programming to MSU Extension.
Dr. Cara Poland, MD, M.Ed, FACP, DFASAM, is a recognized expert in addiction medicine. She is a faculty member at Michigan State University. She earned her medical degree from Wayne State University and was trained in internal medicine at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and in addiction medicine at Boston Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. She received her master’s degree in education from Boston University. She has an interest in educating healthcare providers and providers-in-training to improve care for patients with substance use disorders, particularly during pregnancy and early parenting.
Dr. Sean T. Allen, DrPH, MPH, is an Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Allen has conducted several studies pertaining to the public health of people who inject drugs over his career, including evaluating the public health benefits of naloxone dispensation at public health vending machines.
Laura Palombi, PharmD, MPH, MAT, is the Associate Dean for Students and an Associate Professor in the Pharmacy Practice and Pharmaceutical Sciences Department at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy – Duluth. Dr. Palombi is also a consultant for area treatment court teams. She has established relationships with public health professionals, healthcare systems, and providers and has a strong background in providing effective, multi-pronged education on topics including harm reduction and opioid-emergency response.
Pamela Hughes, Ms. Pamela Hughes (enrolled member of Bois Forte Band of Chippewa and Ojibways of Onigaming First Nation) has an extensive record of serving on Minnesota state-wide substance use and homelessness task forces and initiatives. She currently works with Dr. Palombi at the University of Minnesota on projects that aim to mitigate substance use harms among Minnesotans.