2023 Rural Opioid and Stimulant
Wellness Summit
Supporting substance use disorder recovery, prevention, and harm reduction in rural communities.
Utah State University Extension's Health Extension: Advocacy, Research, & Teaching (HEART) Initiative and Tribal & Rural Opioid Initiative (TROI) presented the 6th annual Opioid Wellness Summit in Price, Utah October 25-26, 2023. The 2023 Rural Opioid & Stimulant Wellness Summit -Open Roads to Health and Wellness: Providing rural communities with many pathways to build strong and healthy families, reflects our commitment to sharing ideas, strategies, and best practices to address the opioid overdose and stimulant epidemic. This year's summit included a pre-conference ice cream social and service project. Participants put together over 180 wound care kits, enjoyed conversation, and Aggie Ice Cream. The 2023 Rural Opioid & Stimulant Wellness Summit gave community members and professionals alike a chance to discuss successes in the field of substance use disorder prevention, treatment, and recovery, a time to learn and grow, as well as build readiness to address new and emerging rural wellness issues together.
The 2023 summit included a health and wellness resource expo. This expo highlighted local, state, and national agencies that support indivuduals with a substance use disorder and their families. The first day was completed with dinner provided by local food trucks and an equine demonstration held at the Carbon County Fairgrounds. This demonstration gave participants the opportunity to learn all about how equine-assisted services promote well-being and experienced a hands-on demonstration of equine-assisted services with Honey and Winnie, USU's two miniature horses. The second day included additional exper presenters, people with lived experience, and an opportunity drawing. Over the three days there were over 200 participants in attendance.
Speakers provided inspiring sessions on substance use disorder, stigma, harm reduction, treatment, and prevention
The 2023 Rural Opioid & Stimulant Summit brought an enlightened understanding of rural communities strengths in our connectedness and willingness to take on new challenges to form new pathways. Over the course of the pre-conference and two-day summit participants heard from 31 speakers and had 10 wellness activity presenters. Presentations included harm reduction concepts, stories of recovery, farm stress, stimulant use disorder, and the opioid overdose crisis. Acudetox demonstration, and a hands-on equine services demonstration. A panel of individuals in long-term recovery spoke about the needs of peer support. Wellness breaks and networking opportunities assisted in creating connection among presenters, community members, and providers. Together we built a readiness to address new and emerging rural wellness issues. Connected, we will face the opioid overdose crisis and emerging stimulant crisis.
A huge thank you to all those that contributed, volunteered, held booths, sponsored, presented, and attended the summit with us in October! Thank you for learning with us and sharing this information with our communities to break down stigma, which in turn encourages the broad sharing that prevention works, treatment is effective, and people do recover!
Schedule and Speaker Directory
2023 Rural Opioid & Stimulant Wellness Summit Presentations
Presentation name: Farm Stress: Recognizing The Risk And Providing Resources For The Farmers and Ranchers In Our Communities
Farm Stress: Recognizing The Risk and Providing Resources For Farmers and Ranchers presentation slides
Presentation name: Understanding ACE Scores and their Impact on SUD: The Crucial Role of Early Prevention
Understanding ACE Scores and their Impact on SUD: The Crucial Role of Early Prevention presentation slides
Presentation name: The Benefits of Equine Assisted Therapy For Veterans in The Residential Substance Use Disorder Treatment Setting
The Benefits of Equine Assisted Therapy For Veterans in The Residential Substance Use Disorder Treatment Setting
Equine-Assisted Activities presentation slides
Presentation name: Opioid Use Disorder: Pharmacology
Pharmacology of Opioids and Stimulants presentation slides
Presentation name: Person First Recovery Language and Stigma Reduction
Person First Recovery Language and Stigma Reduction presentation slides
Presentation name: Keynote- Provider and Patient Perspectives Panel
Presentation name: Importance of Harm Reduction and Successes
Presentation name: Importance and Success of Peer Support
Presentation name: Complementary Treatments for Addiction, Trauma, and Stress
Complementary Treatments for Addiction, Trauma, and Stress presentation slides
Presentation name: Opioids and Stimulants in Utah
Opioids and Stimulants in Utah presentation slides
Presentation name: Closing Remarks, Joseph Ward, Dean College of Humanities and Social Sciences
@usuHEART@TROIResourceCenter