In the grand scheme of an education, of a life, of a troubled world, a five-session online course would be easy to overlook. 

But a learning opportunity offered by the University of Michigan this semester is mentoring future leaders, transforming lives and generating solutions for pressing problems right where they are needed.

The pilot curriculum, “Community Conversations for Preventing At-Risk Substance Use,” created an opportunity for students at U-M and the University of Alaska, Anchorage, and social workers or community members working to prevent harmful substance use. 

Its premise is to combine research-based strategies with cultural and local wisdom that is surfaced and shared in a “learning circle” by class participants.

“Rather than focusing on abstinence-only approaches, the curriculum supports understanding the complex reasons behind substance use and recovery, and promotes support and prevention through relationships, community values, and collective action,” said Elizabeth Evans, adjunct lecturer in the School of Social Work who serves as the instructor for the course, with Lisa Wexler, professor of social work, facilitating the pilot curriculum as a guest lecturer. 

Evans and Wexler are both affiliated with the School of Social Work and the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the Institute for Social Research.

Evidence-based messaging on substance use

The “just say no” campaigns of last generation failed to protect American youth from harmful substance use. Research has shown that messages like those from the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, commonly known by the acronym D.A.R.E., often lacked evidence and exaggerated risks. 

They generally did not move the needle on substance abuse and in some cases pushed it in the wrong direction.

What does work for preventing risky substance use, according to Wexler, is fostering open, community-led conversations, compassion and care for people using substances and the people who care about them.

“Our approach is very applicable to many different people and offers an opportunity for people to talk about their experiences, share their knowledge and develop new ways of preventing and addressing harmful substance use that generate hope,” Wexler said.

Local knowledge

This approach, and the substance use curriculum that Wexler and colleagues developed in partnership with the state of Alaska’s Office of Substance Misuse and Prevention, community stakeholders and the Yakama Nation, developed as an expansion of the evidence-based model, Promoting Community Conversations About Research to End Suicide, or PC CARES, designed to reduce Alaska Native youth suicide and promote youth and community wellness. 

Research on the PC CARES model, which was co-developed by Wexler and Alaska Native community members, has shown its efficacy in increasing knowledge, skills and prevention-related behaviors for adults in community and school settings.

These strategies could save lives across the U.S., where some 58% of people 12 and older are defined as “current users” of tobacco, nicotine, alcohol or illicit drugs, according to a 2024 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration report. 

By reaching and adapting to local contexts, they stand to yield even greater impacts in locations, including American Indian and Alaska Native communities, that have disproportionately high rates of substance use disorders and deaths from drug overdose. Central to the PC CARES approach are collaborative “learning circles” that foster exchange of insights and opportunities to build on local knowledge.

At a recent learning circle, participants spent time exploring why youth use substances, what adults can do to prevent risky use and how to communicate to build connection and trust in their communities.

Without lectures, the curriculum created participatory learning opportunities around a few critical points and questions, prompting participants to engage in chats, small breakout groups, opinion polls and discussions that created space for personal and local wisdom to surface. 

For example, a participant brought a key perspective on how a child’s exposure to adults’ substance use in a small village in Alaska might look different from a child’s exposure in an American suburb. Another participant shared how punishment for unwanted behavior might have distinct valences in a family with autism. 

Placing learning in context not only broadened discussions but prompted participants to adapt community-informed solutions.

Cascading impacts

Since useful strategies can catch on and cascade outward, a single lesson can impact communities exponentially. But the leap from learning to action is often invisible and hard to trace. Teachers don’t always know how their lessons are applied in the field. At the end of the learning circles, each student is prompted to add a bullet point reflecting on how they will apply their learning.

A recent round of bullet points demonstrated the immediacy of the course’s impact as participants described their direct intentions:

• To ask siblings about how they are feeling.
• To have an open conversation with a nephew while carving pumpkins.
• To tell a friend how cannabis and alcohol affect the developing brain.

Furthering its range of impact, the curriculum leaders expect some of the students to receive additional training to become facilitators of At-Risk Substance Use Learning Circles themselves in the coming year, reaching social workers, teachers, families, and others in their own communities.

This work is exemplary of U-M’s approach to life-changing education and its Look to Michigan vision: Pushing the boundaries of learning beyond the classroom, fostering lifelong growth and addressing accessibility gaps in access to education that limit human potential.