Who Should Attend?

This conference invites addiction practitioners, health care providers, criminal justice professionals, researchers, and policymakers who wish to learn more about science-based practices for the treatment of addictive disorders.

As in other fields of medicine, a gap exists in the drug abuse treatment field between clinical practice and scientific research. Blending Addiction Science and Treatment: The Impact of Evidence-Based Practices on Individuals, Families and Communities provides an important opportunity for clinicians and providers to interact with the developers of empirically supported treatments in awareness raising workshops focused on treatment implementation.

One important response to the gap in the drug abuse treatment field between clinical practice and research has been the National Institute on Drug Abuse's (NIDA's) National Drug Abuse Clinical Trials Network (CTN), a research infrastructure currently consisting of 16 research "nodes" designed to test the effectiveness and usefulness of new and improved interventions in community-based treatment settings with diverse populations.

Research conducted within NIDA's Clinical Trials Network (CTN) as well as other NIDA supported research studies is disseminated through the NIDA/SAMHSA Blending Initiative. The Blending Initiative is NIDA's most recent and innovative effort to translate research into practice and help make the best drug addiction treatments available to those who need them. The NIDA Blending Conference represents one component of this ground-breaking initiative.

The Goal and Objectives of the Blending Conference

Goal: The Blending Addiction Science and Treatment Conference is designed to make the best drug abuse and addiction treatments available to those who need them.

The objectives are:
Upon completion of the conference participants should be able to:

• Employ bi-directional communication to advance the exchange of ideas among drug abuse and addiction researchers and community treatment providers.
• Recognize NIDA’s research and its’ role in the development of science-based practices
• Identify Blending Team Products and discuss how they may be utilized in the treatment of drug abuse and addictive disorders
• Cite additional resources for knowledge and skill development of science-based practices
• Discuss and disseminate science-based practices for the treatment of drug abuse and addictive disorders.