Substance Use Prevention and Early Intervention
Prevention and early intervention strategies support youth, young adults, and adults to reduce risks and harms associated with substance use disorders and mental health challenges. At C4, our goal is to ensure equitable access to services and supports across the continuum of care—from prevention and early intervention to treatment and recovery supports. We center racial equity as a strategy to address disparities and ensure that people who are most severely marginalized by racism can access vital prevention and early intervention services.
We support program design, training, implementation, and evaluation of substance use prevention and early intervention strategies, including those that can prevent opioid misuse and overdose. We partner with programs and communities to develop, adapt, and implement racially equitable prevention and early intervention approaches. To enhance prevention efforts, we also address structural factors that can create barriers to behavioral health services and supports.
Needs vary across age groups. Prevention efforts that work for adults won’t always work for youth and young adults. The chance of developing a substance use disorder is greatest for people who use alcohol and drugs during their teenage years. In response, C4 developed Project Amp, a brief mentorship intervention approach for youth that enhances resiliency and prevents alcohol and other drug use. Project Amp is delivered by near-age peer mentors, typically in school-based or other youth-serving community settings and is racially equitable, culturally responsive, flexible to youth preferences and intersectional identities, and adaptable to suit the needs of different communities. We partner with our Youth Advisory Board, young adult peer mentors, and other youth and young adults to ensure Project Amp and other initiatives are youth-informed.
Our team includes service providers, trainers, researchers, and people who have experienced mental illness, substance use, trauma, and homelessness across the ages. Our work is grounded in our experience with providing and participating in mental health and addiction services. We keep people with lived experience at the forefront to ensure real-world expertise is embedded in all we do.
We Can Help You
- Create and implement equitable prevention and early intervention strategies
- Engage youth and young adults in developing and delivering equitable prevention and early intervention efforts
- Bring Project Amp to your school or community
- Respond more effectively to opioid use disorders by understanding:
- Risk factors for developing an opioid use disorder
- How opioids affect the brain
- Risk factors for overdose and relapse
- Overdose and relapse prevention
- Provide strong support to people seeking recovery, across the continuum of opioid and other substance use disorder services by centering those who have been systematically marginalized
Learn more about partnering with us.
Our Experts
Kevin McCarthy, Trainer
Example of Our Work
Preventing Substance Use & Promoting Well-Being for Adolescents
Project Amp is an extended brief mentorship intervention that utilizes the power of skilled young adult peer mentors to implement a youth-focused, strengths-based, and non-punitive prevention and early intervention resource. This multi-session intervention pairs youth with young adults with lived experience of recovery and resiliency specific to substance use, mental health, trauma or related challenges. Because of its flexible nature, Project Amp can support youth at varying stages of substance use risk and related mental health challenges. Learn more about how Project Amp can fit in your school, agency, or community.
Learn More
- Harm Reduction: Compassionate Interventions for Recovery: online course starts February 26, 2024
- Whole-Person Care for People Experiencing Homelessness and Opioid Use Disorder—video recording of webinar sponsored by the Homeless & Housing Resource Center featuring C4’s Ken Kraybill and Steven Samra (88:55 minutes)
- Whole-Person Care for People Experiencing Homelessness and Opioid Use Disorder: A Toolkit—developed by C4 staff in collaboration with the Homeless & Housing Resource Center (PDF)
- Opioid Overdose Prevention and Support
- Project Amp
- Pregnancy and Recovery
- My Recovery Journey: Steven Samra—video (4:35 minutes)
- My Experience in a Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) Program: Steven Samra—video (5:17 minutes)
- Substance Use & Mental Health Recovery Supports
More about our expertise and our training and technical assistance approaches and offerings.