Prevention Profiles: Take Five - Jeff Coady, Psy.D. (Center for Substance Abuse Prevention)

Jeff Coady, Psy.D., Regional Administrator and Acting Director, Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, is this month's guest on Prevention Profiles: Take Five. During the interview, Dr. Coady discusses the four elements of a modern prevention system, how colleges and universities can emphasize primary prevention messaging to all segments of the campus population, ways in which colleges and universities can collaborate with their surrounding communities on a number of SAMHSA’s high-profile awareness campaigns, and more.

Rich Lucey: Hi, folks. This is Rich Lucey.

I am a Senior Prevention Program Manager here in the Drug Enforcement Administration's Community Outreach and Prevention Support Section.

Welcome to this episode of Prevention Profiles Take Five.

Delighted to have today as our guest Dr. Jeff Coady who is Regional Administrator and Acting Director of the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, which is my former stomping grounds before I joined DEA back in 2016.

So let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Coady before we get into our interview.

So Captain Jeff Coady is a commissioned officer in the U.S.

Public Health Service and a board certified clinical psychologist.

Since 2011 he has served as the Region 5 Administrator and is currently the Acting Director for the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention which is housed within the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

As CSAP's Acting Director, Captain Coady is the Principal Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use on Policy, Program Development and Financing of Substance Use Disorder Prevention.

Since his commission in 2004, Captain Coady has served a central role in conceptualizing, developing and training federal mental health disaster response teams within the U.S.

Public Health Service.

He has served as a team leader and deployed to numerous public health emergencies including the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, multiple tribal behavioral health emergencies, Scott County HIV outbreak, Flint water contamination crisis and COVID-19.

Dr. Coady has received numerous professional military and civic honors throughout his career.

 He has an unwavering commitment to individuals with behavioral health disorders, their families and the communities in which they reside.

 And with that, Dr. Coady, welcome to the podcast.

Coady: Well, hello, thank you for having me.

Real excited to be here.

Lucey: Absolutely and it's always fun for me to talk to someone who is connected with an agency that I spent a good part of my career with.

And Dr. Coady, I think that's how you and I met a few times when I was Special Assistant to former Director Fran Harding there in CSAP.

So it's great to have you on, and I'm really looking forward to your perspective on some things and specifically talk about the prevention landscape and where we're going.

And that really is the kickoff for my first question for you.

So you have a dual perspective in one respect from your perspective as both a regional administrator and as CSAP's Acting Director.

What are the top two or three prevention issues that we should have on our radar screen?

Coady: Thanks for asking.

So in terms of thinking about what would be some of the main issues that we should be thinking about, at CSAP we're thinking about a couple things.

Let me just rattle a few off.

One is really building a healthy environment.

And within an environment, we think about the information environment.

Last year the Surgeon General, Dr. Murthy, had issued an advisory on confronting health misinformation, realizing it imposes a serious threat to individual and public health.

And technology can be a double-edged sword with that in terms of sometimes making it easier to spread information as an unprecedented speed and scale.

And other times it helps to inform the folks in terms of facts and information that we can act on.

So one thing we really want to do is to help students, faculty and staff to build resilience to misinformation.

We want to really address some of the challenges that we might have with alcohol use and help better inform alcohol literacy.

We want to share what we know and what we don't know about cannabis and cannabis derived products, CBD, Delta 9, et cetera.

We want to discuss health and safety issues related to opioid use and make sure that people have the facts about pain management, about counterfeit pills, knowing that you have an initiative related to this specifically, as well as Naloxone.

So the more that we can really use and provide the students on campus with health facts and information that they can then act on, that's something that's critically important to us to make sure that people have timely and accurate information.

I'm sorry, go on.

Lucey:  Go ahead.

No, I'm just agreeing with you on the information piece.

Please proceed.

Coady: Well, another area that we're sort of thinking about, really I know a lot of times prevention, obviously the importance of adolescence without a doubt in terms of the developmental period, but recognizing obviously college campuses that that continues in terms of both brain social, emotional development.

And that continues throughout life.

I think sometimes we thought of prevention as only being a particular timeframe in terms of youth.

When we look at it across the lifespan, I think that's something that anytime that there is a risk factor that prevents in someone's life we could lean forward in prevention.

And that obviously could be youth, but it could also be middle-aged and older adults.

Recognizing how much is going on in terms of older adults and some of their misuse in terms of substances and in terms of the availability and the information around there surrounding medical marijuana and other substances in terms of the availability and ease of alcohol access.

So we really want to take a lifespan approach because recognizing what happens in an individual's family is going to impact them.

So we really want to make it true to both that family as well as that lifespan approach.

And to do that we're really going to have to really involve all sectors of a community.

I think that we recognize that our partners, that we can increase the amount of partners that we have in our coalitions.

That maybe sort of traditional partners in sectors, but maybe there's a wide variety and opportunity for us to expand those partners and sectors.

I just talked about the aging.

Like for example our area aging folks.

And in terms of other opportunities where staff might congregate, how can we influence the college staff as well as the students? I mean looking at their health and their prevention.

Because obviously that's a message that we can influence some of those messengers that they can take that forward obviously to the students, to the dorms and to the other areas of campus that students live.

Lucey: There were a couple of things that you mentioned that I know resonate so much on the work that you do at CSAP, that we do here at DEA.

One is that I liked the phrasing you used of the information environment.

We know that one of the cornerstones of solid prevention strategy or program is clear and concise messaging, and you have to have clear and concise information going out for that type of messaging to occur.

So I'm really happy to hear you talk about that particular piece.

Coady: We're really appreciative in terms of your efforts as well in terms like this podcast to get that information out there.

So much has got to be the trust in messenger and community.

I think we'll talk a little bit more about that in terms of some of our efforts to make sure that we are engaging those individuals who have that trust.

And they can access different sort of population, priority populations as well.

Rich, if I can I'll give you a third one too.

I think I'd be remiss if I didn't make a pitch for our workforce challenges, strategies and use this as an opportunity to do a little bit of recruiting.

Prevention definitely is a profession.

I think we're both living proof of that in terms of the importance of prevention as a profession.

And it's at all levels in terms of the community, the college campus and our states and nationally.

And recognizing that what we do in prevention, it's often the front door of the behavioral health system.

So the impact and trajectory that we can have on individuals and families and communities' life, it's not only looking at in terms of preventing onset, promoting mental health and delaying sometimes some of these aspects of those behavioral health disorders, but there's a financial cost too that we can save in terms of our society, in terms of recognizing if we can intervene and prevent obviously the emotional toll as well as the financial toll.

So such a valuable profession.

And then also with our prevention I think we're trying to look a little bit I would say across the horizon.

And I use that term in terms of the horizon in terms of horizontal.

A lot of times I think we've been really, really good and got tremendous outcomes in terms of many of our universal prevention efforts.

But as the risk factors in our society are increasing, we recognize that certain individuals really might be [inaudible 9:26] in terms of health, genetics and other aspects that we should really be looking to how we can build upon the prevention continuum and still staying within primary prevention, recognizing that we've got to fill the selected and indicated services and strategies on our college campuses.

So that recognizing one size doesn't fit all and it's not an either/or conversation, but it's a both/and, universal and selected.

It's like the "and" indicated.

Because the more that we can do to help prevent across our primary prevention continuum the more successful we're going to be.

And that's building from a really strong foundation that our coalitions have built.

And so really it's sort of that next step based upon the outcomes that we've already achieved.

And it's a logical next step and our science backs it.

So that's an area that we're really looking for the workforce to grow in as well.

Lucey: I'm certainly glad you mentioned the workforce because so many people I talk to in this field, admittedly a lot of people kind of got into the prevention work that they do sort of by accident or there's a long, winding road.

Not many people go to school to work in the prevention field.

But I really appreciated what you say because it truly is a field based on science.

There are specific core competencies that I know states and organizations have worked on.

And so it really; but the concern as with some other fields is we talk about the great resignation and such coming out of the pandemic and such is we really are looking for those ways to recruit, especially maybe those young adults who are coming out of college into this very specific field.

Coady: And one of the things that we've seen here within our Center is we've had such a variety of individuals from different backgrounds, from different degrees and just in life experiences that have come to the prevention field.

It's been individuals with lived experience who have been recoveries, individuals who might have worked in a different public health area, HIV and AIDS or some other sort of public health issue that really have seen the importance and the power of what we're doing in substance use prevention, recognizing that it's so interconnected to so many other aspects about community health.

So it's a great time, and obviously there's a great need so certainly thinking broadly in terms of our opportunity to recruit from the workforce.

Lucey: You also started talking about systems and that really is a great segue into my second question for you.

So I've heard you at a couple of events and your staff in some workshop sessions at conferences recently.

 They refer to the four elements of a modern prevention system.

What are these elements and why are they important to prevention on college campuses in supporting students and behavioral health?

Coady: Yeah, the four "E's".

It's sort of been a bit of a branding for the Center as we really think about, how do we describe our system to other people who might not be familiar with prevention? And I'll talk because I think it's got some great parallels to the college campus.

One is Early Action, and that is really Early Action wherever a risk might present itself.

We would like prevention to lean forward.

We would like prevention not to wait, obviously by definition prevention, but lean forward.

We know there's certain risks and events in individuals' lives that we can meet them where they're at with prevention services.

And that might be in terms of health promotion support services.

That can happen both in terms of multiple, them using a college campus from the dorm to at social, at sporting events, in terms of promotion of self-care, recognizing that the stress that's been increased in anxiety in terms of that's a risk factor for substance use.

So the more that we can work in terms of helping people's skills within this particular area in terms of developing that resilience, that's an area that we think there's a lot of opportunity in, in terms of really that individual's skills that could be developed to help reduce the stress thereby helping to reduce the likelihood of substance use.

Student assistance services, in terms of we want to make sure that individuals, whatever their need might be, that we meet students where they're at and then triage them to the most appropriate area.

And that might be more intensive substance use prevention services.

That might be housing.

It might be another type of healthcare.

But really we try to think about, how do we act early? And then another way which I think sort of co-aligns that, the second "E" is Access.

We want a barrier-free access to prevention resources and services.

So really that there's no wrong door, that we have relationships with them.

That's the value of the coalition we have on a college campus, that we have relationships with other areas that could refer and help promote some of the strategies and services that might be on campus.

For example, it could be anywhere from the dining hall into the rec center and the library that all of these when we recognize that an individual has a need or might have a risk factor that those are opportunities for us to use our network and to make sure that we can access substance use prevention services.

So we're real excited to work across the continuum, student health centers, online support groups, nontraditional settings, faith, religious sort of partners on campus as well.

So and including them also, I think in the design of our programs, if we're going to partner with these folks, let's hear from them as our coalitions help us design our programs together.

So then also the third "E" is Effective Delivery.

We have obviously we want to intervene early, want to have easy access, and then we want to deliver our resources and services that's responsible to local needs.

And that's really where I think the data comes in.

The data is going to really help inform us what are those services and strategies that are best needed.

Like I said, we have some obviously universal programs, but what's going to be really important to that particular community? And we can identify that if we look at the ethnicity, the gender, other intersectional identities on the college campus.

And it can also sort of look at, how do we do this with fidelity? We have a great science basis, as you mentioned early.

Let's use that science and implement the programs that we know are science based.

And if there has to be some adaptability through local implementation, there's opportunities to work with that to ensure that fidelity is met.

And I think that in terms of working with some of the training technical assistance partners or some of the developers of these prevention programs, there's a lot of interest in that.

And I also want to say here in terms of effective delivery, we've really got to use local, local best practices.

And that's often driven by the culture that an individual might be from.

Might be tribal, [inaudible 16:43].

But really using some of those cultural aspects and including them within our prevention programs.

We've seen a lot of really positive benefits and outcomes in terms of having that cultural impact because that prevention program is a good fit.

And I think that's the thing that realizing one size doesn't fit all, that we can have a better fit with our prevention programs and effective delivery.

I'll wind up here with our fourth "E", Equitable.

We want to make sure that everyone achieves optimal health.

No matter where you are within the community, no matter where your location is, no matter who you are, we want to have healthy equity for individuals, families, states, tribes, jurisdictions, that we can all, that we can all benefit.

So I think it does require our coalitions at times to step back a little bit and to ensure that, you know, we had mentioned earlier in terms of some of the priority populations.

Do we have them at the table to engage into the design? Do we have them at the planning table? Can our planning table get a little bigger and include different individuals there? We've talked recently in terms of prevention, in terms of harm reduction.

And many times we have certain prevention coalitions who are engaged in harm reduction practices, but at the same time if we're not, is there a seat at the table? We could be using data, exchange data with each other, trends, just having community conversation about what's happening.

So it's really I think creating a bigger tent in some of the equitable conversations and being more knowledgeable.

And thinking through, I think, our programs, I think two questions we can always ask ourselves.

For who and where? So I'll leave you that with the four "E's" and interested to hear your reactions on that.

Lucey: Yeah, so as I was writing them down and I know I've heard them before, it reaffirms for me and confirms for me how well those four "E's" align with the Strategic Prevention Framework.

We know in prevention for the bulk of my career and even now talking to colleges and universities as well as their surrounding communities about the importance, the critical importance of having a strategic planning process in place.

And the SPF certainly fits that bill.

But when I hear you talking about equitable for example, we know that cultural competence is one of the foundations of the SPF and in fact we even go so far to also talk about cultural humility.

That the individual and the organization need to take a look in the figurative mirror if you will and self-reflect on implicit biases that they may hold.

Effective delivery, I mean when we talk about the planning part of the SPF and implementation and then ultimately evaluation.

I mean that's the beauty of these four "E's" as I heard you talk about them is that they align so nicely with the SPF.

Coady: I'm smiling.

I know folks can't see us, but I'm smiling as you say that because I think part of our goal with that was to be able to crosswalk the SPF, obviously on prevention, as you know folks in prevention are particularly familiar with that foundational process.

But then how do we crosswalk that to other folks that might not be familiar with the SPF? They go, what do you guys do in prevention? I'm not going to tell you the SPF, but I'm going to tell you exactly what we do, and so that four "E's".

I appreciate your knowledge base, and we definitely did that with the SPF in mind.

Lucey: I'll move on to my third question because you've already started to touch on this, and then I heard you mention harm reduction which is certainly a concept that's not new to colleges and universities.

It's certainly as I've been saying a pretty seismic shift for the government in terms of its approach.

But how can campuses emphasize primary prevention messaging as well as related messaging, for example harm reduction, to address all segments of the campus population?

Coady: Yeah, we did kind of get into that in terms of what we would consider to be quote the big table or the big tent of our coalition.

And as we sort of think about where we can help provide some of the services, we think about youth and young adults as well as the parents.

As a parent of a graduating high school student, I think about the opportunities to help that could be available to help inform me as my daughter transitions to college, and for me to help carry that message.

So how do we engage I think our parents earlier and throughout that process as well so they could reiterate this particular message about substance use prevention? I think we could look at also in terms of like we talked earlier about, who are our partners on college campus? So I think about who are some of the key messengers that we might not be including.

And I think about many of our academics within the substance use prevention area.

How do we help utilize our terms of health, our science, both physical? Many of the different other areas and departments that we could almost weave some of this messaging in there, recognizing the connected points for health.

How do we look at our religious and fraternal organizations on campus, our civic and volunteer groups? I think the more unique we also kind of think about is who might be some of those messengers we haven't engaged.

I mean I think that we always have sort of the core group but expanding that is something I think that we've got to do as we reach all segments.

And also I think the culturally informed aspect.

I'm going to go back to that, and I like how you said cultural humility because I think that's much more of an appropriate term.

But a lot of it's going to require us to solicit the feedback and to listen in terms of what has the work and what have we been missing? And I think that's when you talk about looking in the mirror.

Where have our blind spots been? How do we recognize these? But we've got to have these conversations to recognize that.

And it takes time.

And I know I'm someone who'd like to have it done tomorrow, but the process that we engage in is going to have a much better product if we slow it down and have that engagement process more.

 And actually speaking of engagement, our agency will be releasing more information about community engagement in the future, and that's something we'll hopefully obviously share with you as always and you can get out the door for us.

Because that engagement part is challenging because there might be some distrust or lack of history.

But it's an opportunity for us to build upon.

And I also think about.

Lucey: Go ahead.

Coady: Yeah, I think about the frontlines a lot.

Who are those frontlines? And I think if you're not on a college campus every day, sometimes it might be the cafeteria is the frontline, where you get your food.

Who are those individuals that have that daily interaction with students that can bring the message out there? Often it's not individuals.

It might be the Resident Assistant or someone, but it might be individuals we're not necessarily thinking about.

And those certain communities where they have trained entire; the entire community staff has been trained on like trauma informed care, knowing that trauma, in terms of the importance of trauma.

So that whether you work within buildings and engineering or you're a bus driver or you are a healthcare provider, you know something about that.

So think about that baseline of literacy that we talked about earlier, that that can be achieved.

I think that we could do that within a college campus as well in terms of substance use prevention.

Lucey: I was taking a note of something that you said that I wanted to reiterate.

And I know that when I do presentations and such about the SPF and strategic planning and such is I do kind of focus in a little bit on the word "impatience" because we know that you are never going to see overnight results in prevention.

And in fact that's really not what we're looking to achieve.

It's always been about long-term normative change.

And I like what you said about, you know, in a sense but to slow it down.

I mean we do have to one, trust the process but there are no shortcuts in prevention.

That's another thing that I continue to tell folks is you've got to be willing to put in the work.

And you mentioned the word "fidelity" before.

Whether it's the fidelity of a process or the fidelity of a program, I think you have to also honor and trust fidelity.

So I really do appreciate that you've highlighted that need to; we need to take our time because it's not going to happen overnight.

Coady: I appreciate you using the fidelity and trusting the process like you mentioned, and letting the process work itself as well as the programmatic.

And one of the things that we've been talking about in the Center and certainly trying is we could also have process goals and outcomes.

Like you said, it's a long-term sort of strategy, but as we see what are interim things that help, that we've accomplished to help build that infrastructure, build that environment.

We should celebrate those and make sure that we write those as we go through the different parts of the planning process, recognize each of those as a step toward that better future.

Oftentimes we want to see, hey, the outcome number has got to be X, Y, Z.

But the process, there's definitely accomplishments throughout that process.

And you know, the one area; go on, Rich.

Lucey: I was going to say about impatience because I'm picturing now the listeners kind of rolling their eyes a little bit about, yes, we know that but I'm getting pressure from all different sides to get results quickly.

And you just mentioned it.

It's about, yes, a long-term goal, but you also can sell and promote the fact that there are short and intermediate term gains that you can achieve during the process.

And you've said it very well that we should recognize and celebrate those goals as well.

Coady: Well said, well said, appreciate that in terms of the reflection.

The other area that I did want to just kind of touch upon because you've asked also in terms of harm reduction.

And I think you're right in terms of a lot of the harm reduction that has gone on on college campuses in terms of binge drinking.

And then we also looked in terms of opioid crisis, in terms of Naloxone, in terms of fentanyl test strips and in terms of some of our sort of service programs.

And I think that what is important that we think about with harm reduction is really the dignity of the individual and the community toward substance use disorders.

We know that stigma is obviously a huge factor still with mental and substance use disorders.

And many times people can do treatment earlier without stigma.

So if we recognize the fact that, hey, all people have dignity no matter where you are, who you are and what might be happening in your particular life, and we provide care and information to people, we know that the outcomes in terms of getting into treatment recovery are six times higher with harm reduction techniques.

So we often think of harm reduction both in terms of an anti-stigma effort.

It's a public health effort.

But also the outcomes in terms of really working through oftentimes maybe shame, guilt, fear, distrust of a system, allowing really a pathway and extends I think our community engagement efforts.

So I think that's sort of the way that we're also thinking about ways that the coalition and our harm reduction entities can work together as well.

Lucey: I want to ask you about our fourth question is really about some of the really high profile campaigns that SAMHSA has including National Prevention Week which is happening the week that this episode airs, Communities Talk Initiative, National Recovery Month, Mental Health Awareness Month.

How might colleges and universities collaborate with their surrounding communities on these events?

Coady: I appreciate that and appreciate the time period in which this is going to air.

And we have a lot of really exciting events.

I think that's something that we do well here at CSAP, sort of predictable sort of events throughout the year.

Like you mentioned National Prevention Week, we have a Communities Talk Initiative, National Recovery one, and also in May also during National Prevention Week is Mental Health Awareness Month.

So think about how our, how efforts, opportunities to enhance this process.

Number one, I think in terms of promoting and ensuring that the information is out there to the community.

I think it gives a really nice platform for our communities to be, to be broadcasting the value of prevention.

It sort of gives a dedicated focus in terms of which we focus on for example the Communities Talk.

We talk about preventing underage drinking by participating in this.

And every two years SAMHSA provides colleges and universities with planning stipends and other resources to host events and to raise this awareness and really mobilize the activity on a college campus with evidence-based prevention messages.

So I really think of it as a place to jump off at, as a catalyzing event for our community.

You might have a particular initiative throughout that year you might want to focus on or a longer-term plan.

But it really gives us an opportunity to welcome additional partners as well as there's such a focus in terms of like our Communities Talk Initiative.

And also one of the things that we can do, campus administrators, prevention professionals and student leaders can use our SAMHSA's College Drinking Prevention Perspective video series.

That's a way in which we've explored how colleges and universities have achieved success in preventing or reducing substance misuse among adults.

I'd encourage folks to go visit www.stopalcoholabuse.gov.

There's a lot of resources and videos that I think can sort of be highlighted within that as we mentioned in terms of these Prevention Perspective videos.

And I think I will talk a little bit more of this about Prevention Week as well.

One of the things that sort of looking at is I think oftentimes we might have, you know, the conversation on prevention might happen within a clinical setting or within an office-based setting.

And that's true.

There's obviously prevention that can happen within those settings.

And I think one of the opportunities that we think about is how do we build a bridge between our clinical settings and our public health settings? So I think that as we recognize it might be an opportunity, there might be screening that happens within our clinical settings hopefully.

Well, if someone's doing well, we could refer them back to the community through our colleges, our prevention efforts.

Let's sustain that wellness.

And I think in terms of National Prevention Week, it's an opportunity to have these conversations with other providers to draw them more closely to the work that we're doing in our coalitions.

And I think one of the ways that we're talking about is also highlighting throughout Prevention Week is My Prevention Story.

It's something where we're encouraging everyone to share their experiences with substance misuse and prevention and mental health promotion on social media.

It's really timely this year because we're all very exhausted in terms of two years in the pandemic, recognizing that there's been sustained levels of stress, disruption, isolation, loss and grief, and recognizing in terms of those risk factors for increased alcohol use.

And obviously we see an increase in drug use and overdoses.

So when we talk about prevention stories, the prevention story might be, well, hey, [inaudible 33:30] and I continued to do these behaviors.

I got reinforced in terms of the healthy lifestyle that I was doing.

And maybe I had these particular risk factors in my life, but because of prevention services they didn't manifest themselves into substance use disorder later.

What are we doing in terms of telling our stories, in terms of how we're engaging priority populations on campus and highlighting what's working? So you know, I think that's a real opportunity this week with My Prevention Story to highlight what works and really to hear from our local colleges and universities in terms of their efforts and to hear from really a first-person perspective as well.

Lucey: Well, we're happy to highlight National Prevention Week as well as the other awareness campaigns, but I know that from my time when I was at CSAP for National Prevention Week one of the primary messages we continued to promote and we do even to this day is that prevention does and should take place all year round, but what this does is allow to really shine a focused spotlight on prevention efforts.

And I think that that's so important as well.

Coady: One of the things that I want to mention that we're excited about this year in particular is recognizing that prevention messages come in a lot of different forms.

And one of them is through art.

And so we're bringing the prevention community with influential artists and organizations from the entertainment industry.

Wednesday, May 11th, is our first ever live creative jam in which we're going to get the message out in terms of a sort of unique way.

I think that's just sort of being really thoughtful to the mediums that we have and those influencers that we can sort of engage with as well to help spread this message.

Lucey: I'm very glad that you mentioned that for May 11th considering that our plan is that this episode will air starting on May 10th so that's going to be a great promo.

Coady: There's still time.

Lucey: For people to jump in and see that.

So as we start to wind down on the interview, Dr. Coady, I'm going to ask you the final question that I ask of all of the guests because the perspectives are so great and varied.

And that is, what is the advice or the words of encouragement that you have for the professionals who are working to prevent drug misuse among college students as well as the students themselves because we know that they do listen to the podcast? What's your advice for them?

Coady: Well, first I want to thank everyone who's kind of tuned in today, all the higher education professionals, the students, in terms of the work that you do to make a difference in terms of the colleges, keeping health and safety.

And I thank those folks, those students who have an interest in this field and really sort of encouraging ways to becomes further involved and connect both with the work that's going on on your college campus as well as nationally with SAMHSA.

So definitely welcome to our broad coalition.

We're definitely, CSAP is committed to making a difference in the lives of others, and there's three pillars I'd like to share with you and sort of a tagline that we also have at the bottom of our signature.

And it's strengthen community, build resilience, and create hope.

And in terms of strengthen community, we want all communities to be safe and healthy and in terms of all our family and friends.

And we know that prevention is a key to achieving this.

And we know that we can work horizontally within our prevention in terms of substance use, working across where there's risk, be it within our social in terms of health, whether it be other areas that we can help connect prevention efforts to in terms of other broader prevention efforts, be it violence prevention, be it trauma.

We know that we can be present at the table so we really want to create a strong community.

We don't do that alone.

We do that with other coalitions and partners.

We want to build resilience.

So whatever challenge comes an individual's way or they might be experiencing, we want to help build that resilience within an individual and throughout the campus environment on a societal basis.

We want to strengthen those protective factors that will help mitigate those risk factors being critical.

That's why we want to lean forward with the resilience in every place that we can.

And we know that we're anticipating and seeing some of the data change in the stress.

Let's lean forward on that.

Let's recognize what's happening and lean forward to help build that resilience.

And lastly we want to create hope.

I mean as the expression goes, where there's hope there's life.

So really thinking about what is the future that we are creating in terms of our programs and all the options and opportunities that individuals have that is free from substance misuse.

So when we take these together, we really think that prevention succeeds, where we all have a voice in shaping our collective future.

Lucey: I love the fact that it is such great takeaways on which to end this interview because those three pillars are all rooted in an action, with the strengthen community, build resilience and create hope.

And I think that whether you're working on a college campus or in the surrounding community or actually whichever setting you're working in to prevent drug use and misuse, those three pillars can resonate across settings and populations.

Coady: Absolutely.

Lucey: So Dr. Coady, again on behalf of DEA, I want to thank you again for not only being our guest on this episode of the podcast but also for the partnership that we have enjoyed with CSAP for the better part of really going on 20 years plus with initiatives and common goals that our two agencies have.

So we really do appreciate that and we look forward to what the future holds for the both of us working together.

Coady: Well, thank you, Rich, for having us and agree about the partnership, a longstanding partnership and looking forward to how we continue to build in the future and opportunities like this in terms of jointly working together, we're thankful for.

So looking forward to good days ahead, creating hope.

Lucey: Absolutely.

And to our listeners, again we thank you for the work that you do and thank you especially for tuning in and listening to this episode of Prevention Profiles Take Five.

And with that I will bid all of you to have a good day.

Coady: Take care.