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Ohio Adult Allies facilitate youth-led programs. Youth-led programs are designed to empower young people to affect change in their communities and provide spaces for Ohio youth to develop critical learning, innovation, life, and career skills. By engaging in this process, youth contribute to building healthier, safer, and more resilient communities throughout Ohio.

Youth-led programs are community-based processes where young people:

1. Determine a problem of practice by examining local and state data on issues concerning Ohio youth.
2. Identify the root causes of their problem of practice
3. Select and implement evidence-based strategies to address those root causes

The Community Collective Impact Model for Change (CCIM4C) Initiative is a highly innovative approach aimed at preventing opioid use and abuse, reducing opioid-related deaths, and increasing access to treatment in the state of Ohio. By combining a data-driven, strategic planning process (the Strategic Prevention Framework, or SPF) with an emphasis on working collectively across the continuum of care (the Collective Impact Model), the 18 funded communities are working to address the opioid epidemic in their communities by utilizing a trauma-informed approach that reduces trauma and promotes resiliency (the Tool for Health & Resilience in Vulnerable Environments, or THRIVE, and the Adverse Community Experiences and Resilience Framework, or ACE|R).

The second iteration of this initiative, CCIM4C 2.0, focused on Social Determinants of Health.

The Ohio Center of Excellence for Behavioral Health Prevention and Promotion focuses on advancing prevention efforts rooted in evidence-based practices. It serves as a central access point for information and resources, connecting Ohio’s broader prevention community with tools to enhance their work across the state. The Center is funded by the (ODBH), and administered by 51ÂÒÂ×’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service, in partnership with the .

Founded in 2022, the center aims to enhance the quality of life for all Ohioans by addressing substance use disorder, promoting mental, emotional, and behavioral health, and providing early intervention services. The center collaborates with federal, state, and local partners, as well as community organizations, to institutionalize prevention science, support the implementation of research-based frameworks, and guide prevention efforts. Through these partnerships, the center prioritizes system change, multi-sector collaboration, workforce development, and responsive community-level solutions designed by and for Ohio’s prevention professionals.

As partners in Ohio’s Children of Incarcerated Parents (CIP) Initiative, the P4CBP worked with the s and  Office of Prevention and Wellness to provide training, technical assistance, and evaluation support for service providers working with families where one or more parents have experienced criminal justice involvement.

By building capacity among agencies and organizations implementing the CLFC program, they helped to build the infrastructure necessary for coalitions, faith-based organizations and service providers working in the correctional, criminal justice, court and reentry systems to embed evidence-based programming into their current service systems.

The Ohio Healthy Youth Environments Survey (OHYES!) empowers high-impact change by uncovering student needs at the local level. This survey offers a deeper look into the experiences of youth in different communities and environments across Ohio. Using these insights, we can learn where Ohio students are thriving and build on what works. This data can also enable schools to track changes in student health and safety over time. (From )

In 2018, leaders from community-based organizations serving rural residents in four Ohio counties (Ashtabula, Fairfield, Sandusky, and Seneca) came together with faculty and research scientists from 51ÂÒÂ×’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service (Voinovich School) and the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE). Together, we co-created a vision for responding to the opioid epidemic across the continuum of care. The Communities of Practice for Rural Communities Opioid Response Program (COP-RCORP) Consortium was actualized with funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The work of the COP-RCORP Consortium has expanded to include responding to psychostimulant misuse and improving access to and quality of substance use disorder (SUD) and other behavioral health (BH) care services.

With funding from the Appalachian New Economy Partnership, 51ÂÒÂ×’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs was able to provide training, technical assistance, and evaluation services to support a non-profit prevention agency in Lawrence County and a philanthropic foundation in Adams County as they worked to reduce the impact of underage drinking in their communities.

Between 2016-2019, Impact Prevention and the Adams County Medical Foundation received mini-grants from the Ohio Department of Behavioral Health to build workforce capacity and create an infrastructure for data-driven substance use prevention.

In 2020, these two agencies collaborated with the Voinovich School to win a $1.5 million award from the United States Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Over the next five years, these partners will work together to prevent the onset and reduce the progression of substance abuse.