Vermont Substance Use Conference 2025

In substance use prevention, intervention, and treatment/recovery, financial resources are often viewed as the primary key to success. However, communities across VT have shown the transformative impact of non-financial resources in building capacity, engaging future professionals, and driving systems-level change. This workshop will feature a youth presentation and a panel discussion highlighting innovative workforce strategies that leverage resources beyond funding.

Workshop Schedule

• 5 min - Introductions
• 10 min – ASAM Levels of Care
• 10 min – Vermont Examples of Levels of Care
• 10 min – Deciding Level of Care Appropriateness
• 10 min – Principles of Effective Treatment
• 10 min – Changes with ASAM 4^th Edition
• 10 min – Treatment Planning with an ASAM lens: 6 Dimensions
• 10 min – The Crossroads between Treatment, Recovery, Prevention, and Harm Reduction
• 5 min – Accessing Treatment
• 5 min – Points to Consider
• 5 min – Q&A

Objectives:

• Review ASAM criteria for all levels of care, including recent updates via the fourth edition.
• Review the Vermont System of SUD Care.
• Review the NIDA Principles of Effective SUD Treatment.
• Review the relationship between the ASAM 6 dimensions and treatment planning.
• Review the intersection between treatment, recovery, prevention, and harm reduction.
• Review appropriateness of referrals and how to access each level of care.

This session will explore how technology-enabled learning and a balance between lived experience and formal training can create a more unified behavioral health workforce in rural Vermont. We’ll examine common barriers to entry-level roles and share innovative workforce strategies from our Maine experience. By emphasizing collaboration, coordination, and connection, we invite you to join us in reimagining more accessible career pathways for those with lived experience in rural Vermont.

To address the profound impact that alcohol has on morbidity and mortality in Vermont, Central Vermont Medical Center and the Central Vermont Prevention Coalition have developed an innovative and collaborative hub & spoke model of care for Alcohol Use Disorder called ROAD. The CVMC ROAD initiative is an effort to provide low barrier access to improved and expanded support services including medical intervention across CVMC care settings for patients experiencing problematic or risky drinking.  This multidisciplinary team approach involves ED providers, Primary Care providers, and local treatment providers.  The team also includes Community Health Team Care Managers and Recovery Coaches who provide support, outreach and education regarding local resources and facilitate linkage to ongoing care in hopes of continued engagement. The UVM Health Network High Value Care team amplified the work of the CVMC ROAD program, convening a cross departmental team to formalize a primary care pathway across the network.

This panel session will share the ROAD model, lessons learned, barriers to implementation and strategies to overcome them, and next steps. Attendees will walk away with information needed to consider such a model in their own communities.

The session will provide an overview of contingency management for StimUD, a review of Contingency Management (CM), research to support CM, and key ingredients in CM implementation. Presenters will offer a perspective from the Vermont Department of Substance Use on the expected benefits of CM and discuss Vermont’s implementation process and data to date. Finally, three treatment providers in Vermont currently using CM for StimUD will describe their experiences

Considerable progress has been made at the federal, state, and local levels in deploying evidence-based strategies to address the opioid epidemic. Provisional CDC data showed a decline in opioid-overdose deaths in 2023. This session will highlight the importance of addressing co-occurring drivers of health and how a closed-loop referral system can drive meaningful change. It will also emphasize timely, equitable approaches to needs and how community-driven referrals can aid recovery.