Vermont Substance Use Conference 2025

Members of the Department of Mental Health (DMH) and Vermont Department of Health (VDH) will share VT’s CCBHC implementation plan and how this health care transformation has led the way with collaboration, coordination, and connection. CCBHCs ensure access to integrated mental health (MH) and substance use disorder (SUD) treatment and health care screening/monitoring with a particular focus on individuals with a significant MH/SUD and/or physical health disorders across the lifespan.

Our Vermont Mobile Crisis Teams are trained to assist with substance use crises using harm reduction strategies. Through this session, we want participants to know the crisis services available in Vermont and how to access them. We believe that connection helps people overcome crises. We aim to build relationships with individuals using substances to create a sense of safety and support in tough times—and provide referral and information for treatment.

In this workshop, Writers for Recovery will engage participants in the steps we take to create a vibrant, powerful, and compassionate space for folks to find their voices and connect with each other through storytelling. Building on ten years of work across VT, the workshop will be a place for participants to experience a safe space that offers healing, laughter, and recovery through the act of writing for seven minutes. It's our trademark, and it works!

Between September 2023 and December of 2024, the Vermont Department of Health's Division of Substance Use Programs (DSU) partnered with Health Resources in Action to conduct a comprehensive, substance use system of care-wide community perspective needs assessment and strategic planning process. This session will review the findings of the needs assessment and the process through which its findings informed the division's new strategic plan. Participants will be among the first to have access to the new strategic plan and will hear how the division intends to operationalize it.

We explore how mental health literacy can strengthen the substance-use continuum of care. This session focuses on collaboration across systems to build shared language, reduce stigma, and promote early intervention. Attendees will learn how to connect with communities through storytelling, education, and advocacy and leave with practical tools to enhance communication, coordination, and care around mental health and substance use challenges.