Keynote: The Opposite of Addiction is Community: Working Together to Stop Opioid Misuse

Speaker: Rahul Gupta, M.D., former Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy

Dr. Gupta, drawing on his experience serving as a physician, a public health leader, and Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President Joe Biden, will kick off the day. His keynote will detail how essential it is for leaders, policy makers, and those working in the space take a community-centric approach to address not only the opioid epidemic but also the underlying causes of it - poverty, lack of education and jobs, and challenges in housing and transportation - in order for the best chance at abating the opioid epidemic.

It Starts at Home: How Stable Communities Enable Recovery

Session Lead: Bradley Byrne, CEO, Mobile Chamber of Commerce

The focus of this panel will be how the social determinants of health - including housing, a safe environment, and stable employment - are key to not only creating a safe community, but also one that is best positioned to help those in active recovery. This session will feature speakers that work in reentry programs, workforce development, and wraparound support services across different communities.

Meeting People Where They Are: Innovative Care Delivery

Session Lead: Kim Garrett, Director of Communications, 68 Ventures

Health care providers are a key component of any effort to reduce opioid misuse, and, as a result, must be involved in any meaningful conversations in this space. This session will focus on new approaches to eliminating care barriers, establishing family-centered models along the continuum of care, and novel prevention strategies - all essential to eliminating the prescription opioid use to misuse pipeline.

At the Crossroads: The Intersection of Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder

Session Lead: Luke Engeriser, M.D., USA Health, College of Medicine

For many patients, mental illness and substance use occur at the same time. Individuals with mental health conditions tend to overuse substances to cope with symptoms, and the substance can exacerbate mental health issues, inadvertently creating a cycle where each condition worsens the other. This session will explore the integrated treatment of co-occurring disorders, focusing on the intersection of mental health and substance use care to improve outcomes through collaboration across disciplines. Panelists will discuss evidence-based approaches, barriers to coordinated care, and innovative models that address the whole person.

Lunch (provided)

Therapeutic Justice: From Punishment to Restoration

Session Lead: Chief Justice Sarah Stewart, Supreme Court of Alabama

So many individuals who use and misuse opioids interact with the justice system at one point in their lives, which allows these institutions to have an incredible impact on those people. In this session, we’ll discuss how the justice system can be used as not only punitive, but also as an opportunity to build community through treatment and accountability courts, peer mentorship, family restoration, and targeted reentry support.

Working Upstream: Education, Prevention, and Stigma Reduction

Session Lead: Stacy Wellborn, Ph. D., Wellborn Strategies

In the substance use space, there are two truths - prevention education is absolutely necessary to prevent new users from starting to use drugs, and in many cases, prevention education is not working as intended. There is a huge need to explore why these messages are not landing, an effort that will require granular research and demographic-based, targeted communications. This panel will discuss peer education models, how to best use storytelling to connect with an audience, broader community stigma reduction campaigns, and how to most effectively communicate in terms of both message and audience.

The Path Forward: Scaling these Solutions

Session Lead: Ricardo Woods, City Attorney, City of Mobile

To wrap up our day, we will bring up policy to bring everything together - this panel will include public health leaders, policy makers, and academics to discuss how to best shape a cohesive and community-centered policy that will drive down not only opioid misuse but also improve the general safety and security of our cities, counties, and broader region.