OPEN Develops Youth Board to Create Resources for Teen Opioid Use Education
At the end of August 2024, OPEN unveiled a brand new initiative: OPEN Teen. This page was created after many months of collaboration with youth leaders, analyzing and dissecting research to compile resources and information designed by teens and catered to teens.
In 2019, OPEN collaborated with Dr. Karen Cooper, an otolaryngologist at the University of Michigan, to create materials for pediatric patients centered around post-surgical pain management. Over the past five years, OPEN has added 14 prescribing recommendations and six pediatric resources. As time went on and these materials were seen by community members, it became clear that while these resources were aimed at supporting patient’s caregivers and their families, adolescent patients were getting missed.
“This left a gap for patients that are old enough to understand their own pain management but still need additional support compared to what we offer to adults,” stated Zahra Dawson, Program Coordinator at OPEN and one of the team leaders overseeing OPEN Teen. “OPEN Teen was created out of a desire to take OPEN materials and target them specifically to a youth audience.”
To fill this void, OPEN, in collaboration with the Adolescent Health Initiative at Michigan Medicine, brought together a Youth Board composed of diverse high school and college students in the greater Ann Arbor area. The group collaborated with OPEN to help review youth engagement materials and dictated what information they wanted to see featured on the OPEN Teen page. “The goal is to live by the mantra that anything we create for teens is being made by the teens and is influenced by what the youth want to see,” said Dawson.
Youth Board members were truly the driving force behind the creation of OPEN Teen. At meetings, members would provide topics they wanted to learn about, share their viewpoints on issues related to substance use disorder and opioid use, and give feedback on how to make materials more relevant to the target audience. Another important job they had was highlighting content and resources they believed were missing from current online databases targeted towards teens. Youth Board members would bring questions they wanted answered because they couldn’t find the information online or weren’t able to talk about them with friends or family.
One member of the Youth Board, who joined because they felt like the current opioid epidemic and opioid misuse in general was not discussed with them in their high school health class, said about their involvement, “I honestly didn’t know what to expect before beginning. I’m so glad to have participated as I’ve learned so much about collaboration regarding the feedback process as well as what might be important things to provide when considering a youth perspective. I also gained far more context for the opioid epidemic in Michigan.” An important aspect of the Youth Board was that this was a space where the youth were in charge of the conversation and didn’t feel like they were being talked down to.
“It is imperative to give a voice to the people we are working with. We want to know what they’re looking for and how we can help get that information out there,” explained Dawson. “Opportunities like this gives them more of an incentive to be part of the decision-making process and gives them that ownership to take this with them out into their communities.”
The OPEN Teen page features information on a variety of topics, including how opioids work, the potential risks of misuse, what the opioid crisis is, and additional resources to help answer further questions and start conversations. The information is featured in a way to make these topics less stigmatized and easier to talk about. “We are hoping this is one of many tools that youth and people engaging with youth can use to help initiate and engage in those conversations,” stated Dawson.
Now that the OPEN Teen page is live, the website and content will be featured in a statewide media campaign at the beginning of October targeted toward teens in Michigan. This campaign is meant to raise awareness of the content featured, in the hopes to reach as many Michigan teens as possible. The OPEN Teen campaign will start just in time for Substance Misuse Prevention and Youth Substance Use Prevention Month in Michigan, recently announced by Governor Whitmer as October 2024. The month is dedicated to working with youth voices to help prevent misuse and potential overdose.
Going forward, OPEN is looking to expand the Youth Board to reach more teens across the state of Michigan and continue developing resources that teens are excited to use. As the organization’s youth engagement work continues to grow, OPEN hopes to harness the mediums and channels that best speak to today’s youth and inspire the leaders of tomorrow.