Prevention & Treatment: Working Together

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Anti-drug efforts involve two distinct components, prevention and treatment. Both are equally important. All too often, some people on the prevention side don't understand what treatment involves and some on the treatment side don't know the work that goes into prevention.

During this hour-long CADCA-TV broadcast, called Prevention & Treatment: Working Together, we'll talk about treatment step-by-step and why it is so difficult. We'll hear how prevention coalitions and the treatment community work together to achieve the goal of reducing substance abuse. Find out how creating a common language can help everyone involved.

Key Concepts:

• Dispel some myths about both prevention and treatment
• Learn definitions important to both treatment and prevention
• Find out how common language can help
• See how family history can play a role in both prevention and treatment

Hosted by:

Mary Elizabeth Elliott, Vice President of Communications, Membership, and Information Technology, CADCA

Content Providers:

Ann Marie Comiskey, Executive Director, Troy Community Coalition for the Prevention of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, Troy, Michigan

Ann Marie Comiskey has been a volunteer in a variety of organizations for many years and involved in coalition work since 2002. Her current activities include being co-chair of the Michigan Prevention Association and a member of Michigan's Recovery Oriented Systems of Care Transformation Steering Committee.

Comiskey is a personal coach and an occasional trainer for the CADCA Coalition Institute. In 2006, CADCA named Comisky "Advocate of the Year."

Comiskey earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan and a Master of Arts in Guidance and Counseling from Oakland University.

Gina de Peralta Thorne, Director of Business Development, Farley Center at Williamsburg Place, Virginia

Gina de Peralta Thorne has more than a dozen years of experience working in health communications and health promotion for not-for-profit organizations, hospitals, and institutions of higher learning in Florida, New York, Ohio and Virginia.

Thorne has leveraged more than $1.5 million dollars in grant funding to support addiction prevention, treatment and recovery. She has provided local, regional and national leadership in coalition development addressing population-level change with substance use disorders. She was a member of the Community Anti-Drug Coalition of America (CADCA) Advisory Board and has participated with NIAAA Feasibility Studies to investigate the relationship of federal partners working with local organizations on addiction treatment and recovery. Thorne is currently the Director of Business Development at the Farley Center at Williamsburg Place, a treatment center in Virginia. She works collaboratively with national, regional and local providers to help individuals access to treatment services struggling with substance use disorders.

Thorne received her undergraduate degree from Florida State University and has an advanced degree in Health Education and Management from the University of West Florida

Stephen Edward Dickerson, Program Manager, Human Resource Development Foundation, Inc. (HRDF), Morgantown, WV

Stephen Edward Dickerson is a standing member of the Creating Opportunities for Youth (COFY) Coalition in Bluefield, WV. He has served on the board of directors at the Mercer County Fellowship Home, an all male halfway house. Dickerson is a 2010 West Virginia Delegate for A&E's Recovery Project.

He earned a bachelor's degree from Bluefield State College, with a major in social science, and minors in psychology and sociology. Dickerson earned a master's degree in vocational rehabilitation counseling from West Virginia University.

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