SAMHSA selected Connect to participate in a national initiative that offers technical assistance to innovative programs interested in improving their capacity to evaluate the effectiveness of their program. Specifically, this program will help to build a bridge between substance abuse prevention and suicide prevention.
Connect will receive consultation in two areas: (1) strategic targeting of audiences for training to maximize contact with populations at risk for substance abuse; and (2) ensuring that Connect is measuring outcomes relevant to substance abuse risk and of interest to substance abuse prevention professionals. Ken Norton, NAMI-NH’s Executive Director comments, “ We hope that improving the alignment of target risk factors and measurement strategies with our collegues in substance abuse prevention will maximize collaboration between two well-organized, but inefficiently ‘siloed’ communities of professionals.”