When COVID-19 proliferated across the United States in March, the Commonwealth of Virginia enacted a stay-at-home order and all in-person substance use prevention efforts were halted. As a part of our longstanding evaluation efforts of Virginia’s prevention programs, OMNI, in partnership with the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS) Office of Behavioral Health Wellness (OBHW) quickly developed a survey to better understand how the pandemic, the stay-at-home order, and the shift to virtual work were impacting the provision of prevention services across the Commonwealth.

Welcome to part two in a four-part series in which we share findings from year one of Virginia’s State Opioid Response (SOR) Grant. This week, we continue our series with a look at progress related to Virginia's prevention efforts. We also share reflections on how prevention practitioners have responded to the emerging COVID-19 crisis, and how their work has quickly adapted to continue to deliver high quality prevention services in the midst of a rapidly changing environment.

As recently as three weeks ago, the opioid epidemic was one of the largest public health crises facing America. With the onset of a global pandemic, public health has been thrust into a new spotlight, and attention has shifted to doing everything in our power to ‘flatten the curve’. Yet for many, addressing the behavioral health needs of ourselves, our families, and our communities remains critically important.

In a four-part series in the coming weeks, we will highlight key findings from one of OMNI’s behavioral health projects—an evaluation of the first year of Virginia’s State Opioid Response (SOR) grant.

In 2016, the City of Boulder launched the Substance Education and Awareness (SEA) Fund to prevent youth substance use by leveraging the city's recreational marijuana tax revenue to fund community agencies (partners) providing direct programming and to disseminate media campaigns.