By Maxine Henry, MSW, MBA, ATTC Network Coordinating Office, and Shannon L. Roberts, MPH, Peer Recovery Center of Excellence
Bringing evidence-based practices to providers supporting people who use drugs is the cornerstone of the Addiction Technology Transfer Center Network. For more than 30 years, we have positively impacted service delivery models focused on harm reduction, treatment, and recovery for those experiencing substance use challenges.
Over the past three decades the network has been committed to supporting diverse communities across the nation, founded in the unwavering understanding that communities are unique and require nuanced approaches to care. One approach to supporting diverse, underserved, and underrecognized communities involves the careful cultural adaptation to evidence-based practices; an approach that has proven successful with Latine communities. Another approach has a goal of digging deeper by means of community-defined evidence practice (CDEP), where the people living and working in a particular place have the opportunity to describe and prioritize their challenges, needs, and resources. CDEP ensures meaningful opportunities to leverage community cultural wealth, instead of simply telling a community what is ‘going wrong’ and how they can ‘fix their problems’.
One example of this type of work is the Latine Community Collaborative, a project spanning two years. Comprised of seven SAMSHA-funded training and technical assistance (TTA) centers and more than 30 community members in Puerto Rico, this project exemplifies the ATTC’s collaborative approach to training and technical assistance.
