Summit Builds Teamwork for Addiction Advocacy Campaign

A steering committee established in May at the second annual Providence Summit on Addiction is developing a six-month action plan aimed at launching an unprecedented national campaign to educate the public and shape policy on addiction.

The committee, with representatives from a dozen leading organizations in the addiction field, has met once since the May 25-26 summit and is anticipating a second meeting in late August. When members reconvene, they expect to lay out detailed objectives, timetables, and target audiences for the campaign.

Members of the committee believe their work is breaking new ground in a field that has been stymied by piecemeal advocacy efforts and by organizations working at cross-purposes.

"There has never been a professionally created, multiyear national communication and education plan in this field," says Roger Bensinger, a public-relations expert who sits on the communications committee at the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc. (NCADD). "Never before have the leading organizations agreed to work together and support a comprehensive education plan."

This year's summit, organized by Manisses Communications Group, Inc., continued an effort that began with leaders of 29 organizations convening at the inaugural summit in 2003. At that meeting, participants coalesced around the wording of a message that could be used to educate the public and the medical community about the disease of addiction, the effectiveness of treatment, and the promise of recovery.

The message consisted of broad consensus statements such as, "Treatment works -- outcomes of treatment interventions for addiction are the same or better than those for hypertension, asthma and diabetes," and "Prevention and early intervention efforts are critical -- it is easier and less costly to treat abuse before it becomes addiction and to treat addiction in its early stages."

This year, 58 leaders convened in an attempt to turn the consensus message into meaningful action. They offered ideas on critical elements of a national campaign in the areas of national messaging, media and public-relations strategies, fundraising, and compilation of supporting materials. The overall focus became somewhat narrower than in year one, with leaders emphasizing the need to reach the public first before addressing the medical community.

Two presenters with firsthand perspectives on the kinds of messages that can resonate with the public were Allan Rivlin, senior vice president with Peter D. Hart Research Associates; and Hampton Shaddock, managing director for health care with Burson-Marsteller, a national public-relations firm.

Rivlin presented findings from a Hart survey of 801 American adults conducted for the group Faces and Voices of Recovery (FAVOR). The survey, which tested the effectiveness of specific messages about addiction, found that messages about helping family members and friends reclaim their lives from addiction work best with the general public, while policy-makers and elected officials embrace messages that focus on treatment as a cost-effective way to ensure a healthy society.

Shaddock used the national breast-cancer awareness movement as a model for instructing summit participants in how to launch a public campaign and maintain momentum. Some summit participants liked the comparison to breast-cancer awareness because that campaign turned out not to be about awareness alone -- it was about encouraging women to change behavior by getting mammograms. Some participants said their organizations would not embrace a campaign that was simply about informing people, saying that the effort also needed to serve as a catalyst for meaningful policy change to destigmatize addiction and ensure its rightful place in the public-health discussion.

NCADD creates framework

A critical event that occurred between the first and second summit served to propel the summit group toward action. NCADD announced earlier this year that it had selected Burson-Marsteller to plan and implement a multiyear, multimedia public-education and advocacy campaign to change attitudes about addiction. NCADD has been studying details of a proposal from the public-relations firm that would involve raising millions of dollars for an ambitious national effort.

At this year's Providence Summit, NCADD President Stacia Murphy committed her organization to raising $250,000 in seed money for a national campaign, as well as to dedicating a portion of the services of its Washington, D.C.-based lobbyist (Carol McDaid of Capitol Decisions, Inc.) to the campaign. Steering-committee leaders expect formal announcements of additional funding pledges from other organizations in the coming weeks.

NCADD is now organizing the effort to take the recommendations shared at the May summit and combine them with details of Burson-Marsteller's proposal to arrive at an amended action plan that can win broad support among the leading organizations in the field.

Clearly, the success of this effort will be tied largely to the ability of organizers to raise funds. Summit attendees this year talked a great deal about the challenges associated with raising money. They identified five short-term targets for fundraising: the resources of the campaign coalition members themselves; individual donors (including "blue chip" recovering people, Shaddock suggested); government sources; foundations; and corporations.

Shaddock advised that organizers not eliminate certain corporations from consideration for political or politically correct reasons, but summit attendees reached no conclusions on whether it should invite the alcohol or pharmaceutical industries to participate in underwriting the campaign.

Bensinger says that private-sector organizations could become interested in funding the effort if they see a group of leading organizations in the field working toward a common purpose. He adds that the participation of organizational leadership and experts from some of the nation's leading public-relations firms in health care create unprecedented synergies for the field.

"We have an opportunity to take advantage of top creative talent, combined with the efforts of a variety of organizations, to reach key audiences," he says.

Summit Leaders

Besides Bensinger and Murphy, other members appointed to the steering committee at the May summit were Linda Hay Crawford, executive director of Therapeutic Communities of America; Pat Ford-Roegner, executive director of NAADAC, The Association for Addiction Professionals; Lewis E. Gallant, Ph.D., executive director of the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (NASADAD); Ronald J. Hunsicker, president and chief executive of the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers (NAATP); David C. Lewis, M.D., NCADD board chairman and project director of Physicians and Lawyers for National Drug Policy; Carol McDaid (chair), principal of Capitol Decisions; Pat Taylor, campaign coordinator of FAVOR; and Ivette Torres, associate director of consumer affairs at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

In the weeks following the summit, representatives of Join Together and the Partnership for a Drug-Free America were added to the steering committee. Bensinger says he expects the steering committee to meet on about a quarterly basis.

"I've been encouraged by the response on the committee, and by people calling and wanting to help," says Bensinger.

The Providence Summit on Addiction was made possible through an educational grant from Odyssey Pharmaceuticals, Inc., maker of the medication Antabuse (disulfiram) for the treatment of alcohol addiction. Cosponsors were Alkermes, Inc., the Caron Foundation, CRC Health Corporation, Hazelden Foundation, Phoenix House Foundation, The Change Companies, and The Watershed Treatment Programs.

Source: http://www.jointogether.org