October is National Substance Use Prevention Month, and on the 10th we celebrate World Mental Health Day. The College of Social Work would like to take this time to recognize one of its faculty members whose expertise lies in substance use prevention and behavioral health.
In her 20-plus years of social work practice, Professor Mitzi Moody’s career has come full circle.
“In the early days of my career, I started out in school social work developing red ribbon, drug free prevention programming for elementary school students,” says Moody. “Through the years I transitioned into providing behavioral health treatment for adolescents and their families who were involved in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems.
But when you work with children, families and communities, whose lives are impacted by substance use, you can’t help but ask, how do we prevent people from falling into addiction? And then you begin to look upstream for answers.”
“Intervening with individuals before they need treatment has benefits for everyone.”
— Mitzi Moody
Adolescence is typically a time of more risk taking. This makes it an opportune time for preventing substance misuse. In her work at the Franklin County Alcohol Drug and Mental Health Board, Moody convened school officials and prevention providers to make substance use prevention programming available for students in all 16 Franklin County public school districts.
“This was definitely a highlight of my social work practice,” she says. “Intervening with individuals before they need treatment has benefits for everyone. It was an honor to set up programming that is still in effect and supporting our youth 10 years later.”
Note that prevention is not just reserved for youth. Anyone of any age can benefit from substance use prevention and mental health promotion.
Moody is now sharing her experience and expertise in substance use prevention with the college. In her time here, she developed the curriculum for the online Preventing Substance Misuse class and teaches it annually. The course lays a foundation around theories of prevention and ways to intervene with individuals and communities. It is intended to meet educational content requirements for Ohio’s Licensed Chemical Dependency Board and to prepare students to seamlessly enter the field of prevention upon graduation.
