Podcast Episode 2: Colleges and Universities as Partners in Prevention

Communities Talk About Prevention podcast. Communities talk to prevent alcohol and other drug misuse. Episode two, Colleges and Universities as Partners in Prevention. Guest, Armiel Suriaga, Florida Atlantic University. Hello, everyone. I'm your host, Rear Admiral Christopher Jones, Director of SAMHSA's Center for Substance Abuse Prevention. Thank you for joining us. Today, I'm pleased to be joined by Dr. Armiel Suriaga from Florida Atlantic University. He's participated in SAMHSA's Communities Talk Initiative and has firsthand experience designing and leading prevention efforts on campuses. Dr. Suriaga, thank you so much for being here today. It's great to have you on and look forward to our discussion. Well, thank you. It's an honor to be invited for this podcast. Thank you, Admiral Jones. Excellent. Well, let's get started. We have lots to discuss. So colleges and universities play a unique role in substance use prevention, bringing together students, educators, and community partners in ways that can shape healthy environments and behaviors, certainly within the school community, but also in the broader community. So in this episode, we're exploring how campuses are advancing prevention efforts and creating meaningful impact in their communities. So first, just tell us a bit about how you've approached prevention and incorporating prevention in the college and university setting. At FAU, particularly in our college, we incorporate and integrate our substance use prevention in our research and also in encouraging our students to join the efforts in raising awareness to our communities because at FAU we have also community centers, we also have community partners and partners that we work with and we advance our substance use efforts in disseminating the information about the harms and the risks of substance use, as well as encouraging our students' effort in this endeavor. We are helping them to be more confident in their conversations with other people and also equipping them with essential knowledge about substance use. Okay, and so you sort of started talking a little bit about this, but in your prevention work and focusing on FAU, how do you see that work playing in across the university to support student well-being generally? And we know like when people are transitioning from adolescence, graduating from high school, their support structures change, right? They're moving from a family environment where in their latter years in adolescence, they're increasingly dependent on peers to set norms and, you know, risk and protective factors. But then they're going into this environment where their structure completely changes and they may be more, you know, more dependent on peers for setting norms. but how are you sort of building that ecosystem and how have your prevention efforts in particular been leveraged to support overall student well-being? Yes, we acknowledge that students, they have strong connections with their peers and peer pressure sometimes play a key role in substance use and misuse. And at FAU, we have these concerted efforts among colleges like the College of Social Work, College of Nursing, College of Medicine, and advancing our efforts to help our students to be uh talk freely about their experiences with it not in a judgmental way in a safe environment we also have psychological counseling at the FAU in case we identify students at risk or when their peers open up in a judgmental way and then we have these strategies of approaches as well on how to approach students to talk about it among the professors and among the peers and also the counselors and advisors. And aside from that, we have research going on at FAU about our harm preventions and reduction efforts. For example, in the College of Medicine, we're so grateful that SAMHSA awarded them $3 million to increase awareness and to promote the youth in substance use preventions and awareness and making them partners of these efforts as well. And at the College of Nursing, we're also advancing our efforts with community partners about substance use. In our clinical assessment, we encourage them to be more competent in assessing those people at risk and with peers. And we encourage the students, fellow colleagues of our colleges as well to be more involved in our efforts to disseminate the harms as well as conducting research. And we help them. We train students on how to analyze data set. For example, we have the Department of Law Enforcement data set that provide us with evidences to conduct research about substances like alcohol or cannabis or kratom or even with other illicit drugs. Okay. And how does that research filter into policy change within the university? So talking about alcohol as an example, you have research on young adult alcohol use or alcohol use on college campuses. How has that changed as you think about prevention or raising awareness among kids who may be underage, but certainly alcohol is readily available on college campuses? And I love the idea of like research to real, in real life practice. Yes. As I said, we have this policy that, for example, like no alcohol, we abide with the law, about below 21, and we acknowledge that. And even in campuses, like after school, we encourage students not to be engaged, especially with their intensive scholarly work, right? It will affect how they perform academically and also how they relate with their other peers or with their even their significant others or families so we have that emphasis in our curriculum and for smoking we have this non-smoking smoking free campus policy and also we have different approaches in substance use we have a bridgeway at FAU that students can have a free speech there we have a table for example with the college of social work nursing and we partners that we promote the the danger of substance use so our students are more engaged and uh but they are more engaged in such a way that we use evidences like for example in my research we have these evidences about the death among youth those who are exposed to alcohol in other substances and this uh evidences or research provide them with insights about the harms and that's not only like oh they affect academically but their lives and health outcomes as well Okay. And so I think you sort of talked about, you know, social work, nursing, other health professions. How do you see that prevention work that cuts across academic curricula and future health providers or behavioral health providers? How does that connect back to the overall mission of FAU and sort of the health of the community? Good question. I am an affiliate faculty of the College of Social Work, Centers for Research and Substance Use and Prevention, as well as I'm partnering with an investigator from the College of Medicine, Dr. Mia, who got that grant from SAMHSA about empowering our youth, rising stars for the youth, for prevention as well. And with these connections with the community stock, with SAMHSA, since 2021, I've been engaged with that. Our universities are very serious in helping our communities because we work with them, with our clinical partners, communities, as well as parents of our students. We have part of our orientation that we include about the harms of substances in the policy, not only for the discipline, but also to raise awareness among their colleagues and peers about substance use. So we're very serious about that. In our community centers, the health care centers at FAU, College of Nursing, we have this also downstream to our students' clinical practice. When they do assessment, identifying the risk of people who are being exposed to substances, even though they are not seriously using it but because of peer pressure probably so we have this approaches that we use in the college we use the the caring science framework in promoting substances like the use of first language we don't use the stigmatizing language for their peers like oh you are addict or alcoholic or whatever so we use this gentle languages so they cannot be a barrier for our efforts to reach out to students or to identify the high-risk individuals that are exposed to substances. Because even now with our research on Kratom particularly, I know it's emerging substances, but we have a lot of deaths about substances. And most of them occurred in the youth, like 18 to 25. Now we are seeing that in the 24 to 25 years old, But we're focusing our efforts for the SAMHSA on our college students, 18 to 24, 25 years old. Then our efforts now are getting momentum because our students approach us even to conduct research and also to partner with us in presentations. And also, interestingly, last April, we have invited one user, one substance to talk to our students in our Nursing Scholarship Showcase. And I'm grateful for him for sharing his real life experiences about the substances and how to encourage students not to even try or be influenced by their peers. So I'm curious how, I mean, I think the, you know, the point that you made on language is really, really important, right? Substance use, even mental health challenges have been in the shadows for many, many years. and people who might be interested in getting help, oftentimes they don't reach out because they're worried about what might happen to them. And I think in a college campus, kids might be worried about getting kicked out of school for simply stepping forward. And so I think how we talk about substance use is really, really important in creating an environment where people feel comfortable stepping forward. And I think that lived experience, those perspectives of somebody who's walked that path can be particularly motivating and moving for people. So I'm curious, when you had the student come and talk about their experience, how did that change the conversation among other students or even inform some of the research that you might be doing? Good questions. When students express first about their, for example, like their encounter with somebody or with their peers or with them, even their own experiences about it we provide them with a safe environment to discuss especially in the classroom to discuss about it and we give them also resources at FAU like our counseling if we see that they are high risk or if it's only like an opening then how it affects their health outcomes as well as their academic performance also when we they open up we don't judge them or report them even if it's really uh what you call this uh we can mitigate uh you know i mean it's only probably one time use of uh alcohol well we can see that the we have the outcomes of accidents motor vehicle accidents or even the any uh that they can relate to um even confusions even you can see it when we are teaching in classroom if they're not paying attention or something then we can have a private conversation you know i mean but not in a punitive way as i said we have this caring framework that we discuss and we treat them as partners you know i mean because we learn from students we learn from the experiences even the user we when we have this uh uh oral presentations and then the user uh uh shared his experiences we said that this is a very it takes courage it takes uh um even confidence to talk to be openly uh discussing this with other people because it's not something that we are proud of that we have been exposed or past experiences so our students can relate that and then when we are non-judgmental to them using caring languages like instead of saying that addict we call them that person where they have challenges with using substances or being exposed to with no intentions to be in that chronic state so I think we see the students that are they are approaching us they are not even afraid to talk about it and then we have as i said in the even in Brisbane even in other colleges that we have this open dialogue with with the students and plus we have that counseling uh uh counseling uh psychological counselor at AU that they identify like a basic assessment intervention risk screening type so to identify students who are at risk and provide them with support that they need yeah no and i i mean i think because the role of peers at that especially among young adults is so important you really do hope that people talking about their lived experience the challenges that they face and also the fact that they can get to the other side of those challenges i i think it opens doors for others to say yeah i'm going through the same thing or i know somebody who went through the same thing or somebody else who needs help and i think you know those things they can they can become viral in a sense right in a way that it it has vectors that can have you know, impacts well beyond just a single conversation, which I think is really important. And these are, you know, the podcast that we're doing today links back to our communities talk program at SAMHSA, which provides stipends to folks like you, universities, to foster those conversations, to bring people together, to talk about substance use, to talk about prevention. So I know you all at FAU have been a part of communities talk in the past. I'm curious if you can tell listeners what was a particular prevention activities or event that you all did as part of the community's talk. What did that look like for you as a university? As a university, we're grateful to be partners with SAMHSA for this community's talk. And for our events, we usually partner with organizations in the community. For example, lately, we partnered with Integrated Healthcare System that provides services for those who are affected with substances and their their clinics that we bring our students for clinical rotations so we have them as a training ground at the same time they're partnering with us with our efforts because they're providing treatment and how it looks like with our students who are being nurses who are in the medical field to experience or to assess people at risk in the community and also we have this at FAU that our campuses should be like smoke-free, alcohol-free, and our prevention efforts like we are aligned with SAMHSA's priorities in this regard. So we have different pathways on how to approach this prevention. Since 2021, when we joined the SAMHSA's community stock, I think we've been successful in promoting awareness not only in our campuses, but also in the media, because we also publish research about the harms and dangers of substances. For example, in my previous research for cannabis, we published that in several media took interest and I got interviewed by the American Nurses Association about the harms. And then we are focusing on kratom now and then not only alcohol. So we have different substances that are affecting our communities. But our goal is to have a safer community so our students can thrive and succeed without being bothered by substances or other risky illicit drugs out there. Yeah, I think that last point is really important. We know from messaging around substances, in particular to young people, that sometimes scare tactics don't work, right? Like there's this discounting that happens with young people. That's why they engage in risky behaviors, because that's not going to happen to me. And I think one of the things that you just pointed out is so important, especially with kids who are in an academic environment, is helping them make the connection of how their substance use can get in the way of accomplishing the goals that they have for their wealth. And that can be a much stronger motivator for either getting help if somebody is struggling or even preventing initiation. So I think that's an important message that you all are feeding in. I do want to just ask a little bit on Kratom, because I have been in at least four meetings this week uh where kratom is coming up all over the place and especially the sort of seven hydroxymitragynine which is the sort of synthetic uh kratom that is often in smoke shops in communities across the country i'm just curious both in your research and what you're seeing on campus how is that impacting things because it is a product that clearly has activity opioid activity that is pretty available in communities yeah that's very correct uh with our kratom From research, especially in Mitra Jaynina, we have this data set, as I said, from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement that provides evidence to the communities. And because when we have invited a Kratom user in a recent activity for this committee's talk, we are surprised that a lot, even our faculty, are not aware about Kratom, even the youth. But deaths in Florida is increasing year by year since we have this research. And we published this one in 2024, and then we have another paper coming in. And last February, I represented presentations at the University of Florida in the Kratom Scientific Symposium about the death. Almost 1,000 people died in Florida since 2020 about the use of Kratom. And yes, Kratom has an opioid-like effect and stimulant effect depending upon the dosage. and based on our research people may not be aware that these substances can be addicting or could be intoxicating and many people died from drug toxicity related to kratom or associated with kratom and they think that it's a safe herbal supplements and the way they promote it and vape store or wherever it is and it's like mushrooming in florida actually and people They have these neon lights there for kratom because it really boosts your energy or endurance or pain relief or opioid withdrawal. But the thing is, depending upon the strain, there's so many things that need to be educated to the public. And the information that we need to relay, there's so much to do. And this community's talk has helped us to promote this among our students. because our students are not aware that this substance could be really deadly in such a way that it causes a lot of death in Florida. So I brought the students to one national conference in Massachusetts a few months ago. And we presented this research as well about the deaths, about kratom. So the students are engaged about these efforts. And the more we do this, the more awareness we raise and the more parents, parents because i think a few months ago i did uh presentations at NAMI at the National Alliance with mental illness and the the topic was cannabinoids but when one audience uh asked me about kratom and i said yes we are that's part of our research and they're aware and then they want to know more because their neighbors uh drop dead uh and it's only 26 years old and then they need to know about the information about kratom so we are focusing our efforts as well on kratom OK. And so let me get back to the communities talk work. How did you engage students in that? In particular, were there student leaders that were involved, just, again, recognizing that point in life, young adults who are an undergrad in particular, are sort of developing leadership skills and finding themselves. And these could be great opportunities for leadership. And we've heard from other folks that have done communities talk in the past, students sort of stepped up and took leadership roles. How do you engage students in the community's talk work? Yeah, in my teaching, I posted an announcement. Those who are interested to join our research on the community's talk with SAMHSA, you may message me and they approach me that they want to be part of it. And then we also presented the research on our showcase and we involve the students in data analysis. And the more they learn about the harms, the more they want to be involved. and they invited the other peers to join us. They said, there's no limit. The more you want to join us, the better for us. It's okay to train people, to do your posters, to raise awareness in the communities. And I think the word spreads in our colleges that, oh yeah, reach out to Dr. Sera. He's doing research on this. And then students, and lately we have students who will do oral presentations. There are some portions will do poster. There are portions who will do conduct the symposium. So we are promoting their leadership skills So at the same time, engage them about their efforts to promote in the community as well. So because I'm the past president of Sigma, which I have this leadership internship, I encourage students to be involved in taking positions that will be making space for them. But you have to take space as well. You have to promote your leadership skills to lead in this effort. It takes effort and skills. I know you're busy with your schoolwork, but it will only take an hour, three hours. we give them also the time allotment how many how much you will be devoting for this without affecting your real purpose of finishing your degree right so but the more they see it the more they see the benefits of joining and be a leader in the community be the voice because they say oh now I see a youth that is coming forward and then it's it's safer to talk now it's it's good to be leader in the community. So I think we are pleased to see that information. I love that. I mean, they're basically accomplishing many things at once. They're developing leadership skills, presentation skills, data analysis skills, but they're also spreading important messages and getting other people engaged. When I was after pharmacy school, I hadn't had enough school, so I went back and got an MPH, and then I got my doctorate in public health and health policy, but I was working at the same time, and I always appreciated when there was classwork that I could always I could also do regular work to check that box for regular work and classwork so I'm sure that students also appreciate that you know they've got this report to or they need to write a paper or do a data analysis you know and it has something beyond just an academic grade right that it is actually fostering some change in the culture at the university or the community so I think that's a great motivator for students right because they they've got to do the work but if it can have you know a broader impact that's really great yeah i'm so intentional because i teach nursing research so the data or the slides that i use i said sorry i have to be uh do disclaimer here that i'm part of this i'm part of this substance use so the data says about substance use okay so it'll be comparable with this about cannabis about alcohol so but the more they use it without intentionally getting the more they're attuned to it i said oh that's only that we know how to analyze it but the the danger to our peers into our communities is there so they are getting but sometimes they say oh uh i miss it i need to do it so it takes leadership so i said oh probably just a bit shy the students you see it where the stages or where they are so meeting students where they are will also help if they're ready or they need more motivations and confidence to do this with their peers and with their clinical partners or our community partners I mean yeah so I'm curious uh from a sort of campus perspective you're obviously in this space every day working in research and policy and practice how have you approached engaging other parts of the university that might you know English departments history departments places where it might not be as relevant but there's the student body that could be impacted is there like how how have you worked to foster a sense of like we all have a role to play as a university academic you know ecosystem in helping support students that's a very good insight we are on our list that we have to approach our college to do partners with us in terms of promoting arts about substance use about the dangers like not only in the posters but providing the illustrations or visual effects of substances in a non-threatening way Also, in some pathways, even with the library, when we do some efforts to do literature review, we insert our substance use efforts there. With other colleges like social work, not only to go to the communities and assess the needs of the community like, for example, housing for people with substance-related experiences or in the college of medicine and nursing about to assess people there in the community what other resources can they have available in the community so in different colleges especially in the computer science how to develop AI on how to analyze more data with the students as well as how to reach out to the community's stakeholders as well as the leaders there so we can have entry in the community not only that we need their support but also to give us the other organizations that we can partner with for these efforts okay so you've been doing this for a while you're like i said you're in the research part of this and the practice part of it one of the things that i often like to explore is that people are often talking about the success we did this and it worked really well i'm curious in your experience and how this has uh changed over time especially around prevention messaging in a campus setting around substance use or risks of substance use what didn't work or what would you do differently based on you know we thought this was going to play out this way or this message was going to resonate like what are your lessons learned for others who uh you know might be wanting to get into this space yeah One thing that I remember that didn't work is that we tried to reach out to our local government, for example, like, oh, can you be a speaker for us in our showcase or community's dialogue with the students about this topic? um sometimes their their schedule uh busy and timing is everything and sometimes uh collaborating with their secretaries or the people that work with them uh and also our marketing department uh to reach out and to collaborate with them not only direct uh contacting them directly because it needs introduction sometimes and it's still on our bucket list to partner with the local government to advance our research especially in the local communities to give us support not only in in terms of providing other services but also we need some funding in the research to continue with the partnering even with schools in middle schools high school because they too need this information to their students because in our research and not only the 18 to 24 years old are affected but also middle schools are using especially cannabis and sometimes in the communities and we want to reach out but those are one of the challenges I think sometimes the schedule and sometimes who you are approaching with and I learned that we need to partner with our marketing with our promotion team as well on how to be successful in to widen our reach and what do you think it's been your most successful partnership a successful partnership We have colleges and clinical partners in the communities and those organizations that work with us. So we put them in some of our efforts, not only for substance use, but also in other research. We put them as sponsors. Like lately, we have the partners with the U.S. Veterans Affairs, VA, in West Palm Beach. We partner with other hospitals like Wellington Hospital, HCA. So we extended our reach. and because they also accept patients or they receive patients who are exposed to substances even with the paramedics so our next step is to reach out with the EMS and then invite them to our lecture first and discuss their experiences in the same time to reach out their possible research that we can promote our community our efforts in the community because they are there in the community uh looking uh or responding to the call especially for overdoses right and our research is almost on toxicity intoxication there so EMS could be a big partner for us that we're looking forward to and not only that but also other organizations in the communities that serve people especially the youth who are encountering this problem with substances yeah and i think it's just like thinking on sort of the partnerships of that are natural for universities i when i was at cdc living in atlanta i live right near emory university so Emory has a medical school a nursing school you know undergrad lots of graduate programs they have a hospital so they are they are more than just like a standalone institution they are like heavily integrated into the community it sounds like FAU is is very similar and so there is this shared responsibility um of that you're you know students who are having challenges with substance use they don't stay just on campus uh you know they they can impact the broader community and the norms that are happening on the campus. So there is a real need for partnerships and working together. And it sounds like you guys have certainly unlocked the keys for a number of really important partnerships. So my last question is, for those colleges and universities that say, hey, we want what you've done, what's your advice for sort of where to start? You know, if you, you know, based on your experiences and lessons learned, who are those first people to start talking to whether that's people within the university or the community that can set that foundation for success yes for those universities colleges and schools that are interested to uh do this community talk with some advice or i recommend that uh first they need to uh uh it starts with the with the willingness uh to be a partner and then with that willingness it uh coupled with efforts and then resources they can access the SAMHSA resources on the web like the toolkit on how to prepare for this community talk, what topic they will be interested in more, like alcohol, cannabis, or kratom, or even other illicit substances. Then they can partner with other organizations who are the champions. They're always like the leader's type, like proactive in this topic or issue in the community. And they identify the community needs, or identify their own needs in the college first. what areas that we are finding our niche on this particular community talk topic. It's so broad, not only the alcohol, but other substances that they can focus on. And what is the goal for these efforts? Because if you see the goal, it's guided your efforts there like a North Star. Because if you see that you're helping the community, you're helping the students, then everybody can be working together like an ecosystem, right? From the academic, from the school communities. And then when we are practicing our own profession, we are encountering these people in the community so we can be relating that experiences and how to be more competent in assessing and also managing these issues, particularly in terms of health outcomes in the communities. Yeah, no, that's so great. I mean, I think having that sort of North Star in a clear goal of where you want to go and then thinking about who do you need to bring along in order to achieve that goal. And I think, you know, you've clearly recounted that this is sort of mutually beneficial at many levels to a university and to a community and to students. So it is really great to hear your experience. I know that it will further excite others to get engaged in this space. So once again, thank you for joining us for this episode of Communities Talk About Prevention. Just really appreciate you giving your time, insights, experiences and perspectives. and ideas for what others could take up in the university, in the academic campus space. To learn more about SAMHSA's Communities Talk initiative and to find resources to support substance use prevention efforts in your own community, visit samhsa.gov slash communities dash talk. We hope you'll join us for future episodes as we continue to highlight prevention stories from communities across the country. Thank you. Thank you. For more information, visit SAMHSA.gov forward slash prevention hyphen campaigns.