The Dissemination and Stakeholder Engagement (D/SE) Core of the Mason Coordination and Translation Center (MCTC) will disseminate JCOIN research-informed information targeted at preventing, identifying, and treating opioid use disorders. This dissemination is designed for criminal justice (CJ) practitioners, policymakers, substance use disorder (SUD) treatment providers, healthcare providers, and individuals impacted by SUDs. Individuals at the forefront of the field will lead this team, with deep reach into the diverse stakeholder communities of CJ, health, and consumer groups. TASC?s Center for Health and Justice (CHJ), led by Pam Rodriguez, will lead the D/SE Core, bringing with her expertise in bridging the justice and community-based provider sectors. Co-leader will be Mark O?Brien at Addiction Policy Forum (APF), an advocacy and policy group that excels at translating scientific information for non-scientific audiences by working with both researchers and practitioners to ensure scientific accuracy with accessibility and clarity. The D/SE Core is designed to follow a participatory research framework that uses multidirectional communication among consumers, researchers, and practitioners to inform NIDA and JCOIN members of research needs and interests. The key goals are to: 1) create a research collaboration with stakeholders (using both in-person and electronic trainings) where practice informs research and research informs practice; 2) foster research-informed practice in the justice and health fields by building communication channels to connect stakeholders; 3) translating research articles into engaging trainings and easy-to-read op-ed pieces for practitioners; 4) developing champions, who are community leaders, to assist stakeholders to implement evidence-based treatments and practices and expand the reach of informed leaders to communicate and use scientific information in practice; and 5) providing extensive, up-to-date information about research findings through various materials, including blogs, research summaries, social media, and other contexts. The team will: provide in-person trainings at mentoring sites; provide online material consisting of webinars, podcasts, and Ted-talk style videos; develop implementation toolkits including trainings on the toolkit(s) and its functions/features; translate research and journal articles into brief articles and op-eds for publication; and publish two articles per month and six fact sheets per year summarizing research findings of effective and ineffective practices. D/SE will host a ?JCOIN Seminar? series at practitioner/stakeholder conferences each year to disseminate JCOIN material. The D/SE Core will work collaboratively with the Rapid Response and Pilot Research Core to identify innovative research topics and the Research Education Core to identify skills needed to conduct ethical studies. The D/SE Core will not only disseminate research findings, but build research infrastructure by developing materials to strengthen the connection between research and practice, especially when treating opioid use disorders. Further, D/SE will ensure that NIDA and JCOIN scientists engage with stakeholders to identify research ideas for scientific study.
Participatory research can be employed in JCOIN to expand the reach into the vast array of justice, health and consumer groups that are stakeholders for scientific knowledge, often with competing interests/values, and to provide scientists with on-going dialogue about pertinent research to advance use of science in practice.
