The Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services’ (DBHDS) Office of Behavioral Health Wellness (OBHW), using State Opioid Response grant funding (SOR), contracted with OMNI Institute (OMNI) for the purpose of researching, creating, and implementing a statewide wellness media campaign to be disseminated throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The overall purpose of the wellness media campaign is to reduce substance use and promotion positive mental health and wellbeing via calls to action from effective campaign messaging.

A majority of funding, including SOR funds, are disbursed to forty Community Services Boards (CSBs) across the state. CSBs offer prevention, harm reduction, treatment, recovery, and other substance use and mental health promotion services to their assigned communities across the state.

OMNI works with DBHDS as an evaluation partner and assists with training, technical assistance, and reporting to directly support CSBs in implementing and evaluating SOR-funded strategies. In December 2020, OMNI recruited CSBs and DBHDS staff to form a Media Campaign Advisory Group to gather information, identify goals and objectives, provide training and technical assistance, and assist in planning and development of the campaign.