[Kankakee, IL] – Pledge for Life Partnership’s Drug-Free Communities Coordinator, Kate Reed, joined nearly 2,000 substance use prevention and treatment specialists from around the world for CADCA’s (Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America) 17th annual Mid-Year Training Institute, held in Orlando, Florida.
Kate Reed (pictured left) was selected to be a trainer, which enabled her to attend the conference on a scholarship provided by CADCA. Kate’s training session about Trauma-Informed Drug-Free Communities was attended by 133 community leaders. The session taught steps to become a trauma-informed community, prevent adverse childhood experiences, heal trauma, and foster resiliency.
The week-long training, held at the Gaylord Palms, taught participants how to address one of our nation’s biggest public health challenges – drug use. CADCA’s Mid-Year Training Institute is a one-of-a-kind intensive training opportunity, offering more than 95 ninety-minute and half-day courses geared towards helping participants find solutions to their community’s toughest substance use problems.
“The Mid-Year is a unique professional development opportunity for coalition leaders and key community stakeholders to learn about the latest research and effective strategies that directly help them in their critical work of preventing substance use and misuse,” said Pat Castillo, Director, National Coalition Institute and Vice President of Training Operations. “After four days of intensive training, leaders return to their communities with new knowledge, skills, strategies, along with new ways to add to their existing roadmaps to continue to create environments where youth thrive – healthy and drug.”
“It was invigorating to be surrounded by over 2,000 true catalysts for community-level change. I am thankful to return home with stronger support, tools, and passion to continue investing in my community.”
CADCA’s Mid-Year covered a wide range of topics – everything from how to prevent prescription drug abuse and reduce heroin use to how to create tobacco-free environments, reduce impaired driving and develop policies to reduce marijuana use, synthetic drug use and underage drinking.
Prevention specialists from across the nation heard from several federal leaders, including Deputy Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy Jim Carroll, and Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Frances Harding. CADCA’s Mid-Year Training Institute took place at the Gaylord Palms in Orlando, Florida, July 15 – 19, 2018. Visit the Mid-Year site for details about training sessions, speakers and special events at cadca.org/events/myti2018.
In May, the Pledge for Life Partnership coalition hosted Laura Porter, an internationally renowned trauma expert, at their Trauma and Resiliency Summit. The event brought together over 100 community leaders from different sectors. The coalition also launched an online portal called Kankakee Iroquois Cares for organizations and individuals to learn further action steps and become trauma-informed.
Kankakee Iroquois Cares is a volunteer-driven coalition whose mission is to build a trauma-informed community through raising awareness about the prevalence of trauma and the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), eliminating the stigma of shame, fostering inter-agency collaboration, and expanding learning opportunities about trauma-informed services to build resilience and heal trauma.