Roundtable Discussion About OD2A’s Strategy 5

This coming Monday (June 29), we will hold our first roundtable discussion using our OD2A Eval CoP online platform. If you have yet to register, you can find the link on our Webinars page.

Compared to most webinars, this webinar will be fairly unstructured. There is no presentation and there is no presenter. Instead, there will hopefully be several evaluators from jurisdictions all over the US sharing their work on activities that are similar because they pertain to the same strategy but also different because every jurisdiction is uniquely different. Quite simply, this a working session where we can compare our monitoring and evaluation approaches and, at the very least, provide each other with moral support.

As you know, Strategy 5 is titled Integration of State and Local Prevention and Response Efforts. Its major activities include better integration of state and local prevention efforts, building capacity for more effective surveillance and prevention efforts, and introducing new prevention and response strategies at the state and local level.

Here in Michigan, this is the busiest strategy in our OD2A-funded program. We are looking at developing opioid fatality review teams, developing a strategy guide for community organizing around health and safety, implementing an RFP process to bring resources to communities addressing local manifestations of the opioid epidemic, and so much more.

These are the types of programs that engage in the local and integrative activities that are associated with Strategy 5. I am hoping that the folks that join us on Monday will be equally enthused about evaluating these types of activities.

So, please join us for a stimulating conversation about how we are monitoring and evaluating the activities assigned to Strategy 5.

We will ask folks to talk about their most interesting and/or vexing activities and how they are monitoring and evaluating them. We will use the CDC evaluation framework and an established facilitation tool to guide our conversation. Most importantly, we will provide an environment where working relationships can start and be maintained even after the webinar is done.

Want to prepare for Monday’s discussion? We created this workbook to help.