Strengthening Substance Use Prevention Messaging for Youth in the Wake of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused incredible disruption in the lives of young people during a time when they are already vulnerable in their growth, development, and identity. To better understand the pandemic’s impacts on youth wellbeing and substance use, the National Council for Mental Wellbeing (National Council) conducted a national assessment in January 2021 of youth ages 13-18 and youth-serving providers. Early findings indicate that 78% of youth felt the pandemic increased stress for young people and their families and 69% reported increased feelings of loneliness. Nearly a quarter of the youth respondents reported that during the pandemic, accessing substances was easy or very easy. These impacts are relevant to the current public health crisis and will continue to affect the behavioral health of today’s youth for decades to come. In fact, 75% of young people believe the pandemic will have a lasting impact on their generation’s mental health and more than half believe it will have a lasting effect on their generation’s use of substances.Early intervention and prevention of substance use is essential to impeding future substance use challenges and disorders. To address the rising concern of substance use during and in the wake of the pandemic, the National Council created a comprehensive message guide and toolkit based upon findings from the national assessments of youth and youth-serving providers, as well as key informant discussions and message testing with focus groups and a follow up assessment of youth, to assist youth-serving providers engage with youth in substance use prevention conversations. This workshop will feature instruction on how youth-serving providers from behavioral health, primary care, community-based organizations, and other settings that serve youth, can effectively implement the substance use prevention messaging which includes key concepts such as building trust, gathering insight, and framing the conversations, to effectively deliver prevention messages and converse with middle and high school youth. Additionally, the workshop will feature a complementary toolkit that includes clinical and operational resources to build capacity and support youth-serving providers to implement the message guide.