Investing in Prevention: How SENT Is Redefining Community Health and Stability

/ Commentary, SENT Impact / By

Communities across the nation are being entrusted with an unprecedented opportunity — to transform the lessons of the opioid crisis into long-term investments that prevent future harm before it begins. The Guidance for Investing the Opioid Settlement Funds in Primary Prevention, developed by the Partnership to End Addiction, outlines how these settlement dollars — nearly $50 billion nationwide — can be directed toward strategies that strengthen families, improve neighborhood conditions, and address the root causes of substance use.

This framework affirms what SENT’s work in Southeast Topeka already demonstrates every day: prevention is most effective when it is proactive, relational, and community-driven. By focusing on whole-family stability, access to care, and the social conditions that shape health, SENT’s model reflects the national call to build systems that make thriving possible — not just recovery.

Core Premise

The guide argues that addiction is preventable, but only when prevention starts early, is evidence-based, and is woven through all parts of community life—families, schools, neighborhoods, health systems, and public policy. Current spending and public attention lean heavily toward treatment and recovery, leaving prevention underfunded despite its higher return on investment.

Defining Primary Prevention

Primary prevention means reducing risk factors and strengthening protective factors before substance use begins. Effective prevention:

  • Builds resilience and social-emotional skills.
  • Strengthens family bonds and school engagement.
  • Expands safe, dignified environments and mentorship opportunities.
  • Integrates mental health promotion and trauma-informed care.

The guide emphasizes the social determinants of health (SDOH)—poverty, housing insecurity, discrimination, access to care, and neighborhood conditions—as foundational to prevention. Addressing these determinants, even when not directly tied to drugs, is essential to reducing addiction.

Role of Key Sectors

  • Families: Early attachment, parenting education, and reducing parental stress through supports like home visiting and childcare.
  • Communities: Coalitions that shift local norms, limit substance access, and expand extracurricular activities, safe public spaces, and mentoring.
  • Schools: Ongoing, interactive, age-appropriate prevention curricula; non-punitive discipline; school-based mental health services.
  • Health Systems: Universal screening for risk factors, integrating behavioral health, and expanding access to mental health/SUD care.
  • Government: Policy levers addressing poverty, affordable housing, paid family leave, child tax credits, and access to health insurance.

Approved Uses for OSF

The opioid settlements require at least 70% of funds to be used for “future remediation.” Exhibit E of the settlement allows funds to support:

  • Evidence-based prevention in schools.
  • Community coalitions and family supports.
  • Youth mental health and resilience programs.
  • Access to school-based counseling.
  • Programs for pregnant and postpartum women.
  • Prevention for populations with unique needs (e.g., LGBTQ+, racial minorities, rural families).

Guiding Principles for Investment

  • Prioritize universal and selective prevention (not only indicated treatment).
  • Fund multi-sector collaboration and community-driven initiatives.
  • Use data and needs assessments to target the most pressing risks.
  • Avoid one-off awareness events or punitive interventions.
  • Combine OSF with other federal, philanthropic, and local funding streams for sustainable impact.

How SENT Inc.’s Model Intersects with the Guidance

SENT’s current work in Topeka’s Hi-Crest neighborhood exemplifies many of the guide’s recommendations for effective use of opioid settlement funds. Key intersections include:

Whole-Family, Whole-Community Prevention

The guide underscores prevention as a collective responsibility across systems—mirroring SENT’s whole-family, whole-neighborhood approach. SENT’s integration of housing, mental health, workforce development, and food access aligns with the report’s emphasis on addressing the social determinants of health to reduce substance use risk.

Addressing Risk and Building Protective Factors

SENT’s programs target nearly every category of risk and protection identified in the guide:

  • Stable housing and neighborhood safety through affordable housing and land trust models.
  • Family cohesion and parenting support through case management (neighbor advocacy), Parenting for Positive Self-Worth, Triple P Parenting Program, and wraparound services.
  • Access to nutritious food and social connection via the Southside Filling Station.
  • Positive youth engagement through partnerships with Ross Elementary, Eisenhower Middle, Avondale Academy, and Highland Park High Schools.
  • Mental health and resilience-building through “Making Sense of Your Worth,” art therapy, yoga, and music therapy—activities explicitly listed as protective in the guide.

Trauma-Informed and Equity-Centered Design

The guide’s focus on ACEs, trauma, and intergenerational stress is directly reflected in SENT’s trauma-informed case management, mental health partnerships, and focus on early intervention in schools and families—especially for populations facing discrimination and poverty.

Collaborative Systems of Support

SENT’s partnerships with Fellowship Hi-Crest, KHI, KHF, KDHE, the Topeka Housing Authority, and local schools represent the kind of multi-level collaboration the guide calls essential. SENT’s model demonstrates how prevention, health, and housing can be coordinated rather than siloed.

Workforce and Economic Stability

By linking community members to employment, apprenticeships, and training (e.g., through SER and 2Gen approaches), SENT operationalizes the report’s guidance to address economic stability and opportunity—a major protective factor against addiction.

Potential Use of Opioid Settlement Funds

Given SENT’s infrastructure, the organization could responsibly administer opioid settlement funding toward:

  • Youth mental health expansion (school-based services, art therapy, CHW-led supports).
  • Parent and caregiver training programs.
  • Community-based coalitions promoting protective norms and engagement.
  • Transportation and access to wellness and treatment services.
  • Housing-first pilots to stabilize families and interrupt cycles of trauma.

National Insights: Aligning SENT’s Work with Proven Prevention Strategies

Across the country, public health experts agree that the most effective way to prevent addiction is to strengthen families, neighborhoods, and systems that shape daily life. National prevention research highlights the same priorities already reflected in SENT’s work in Southeast Topeka.

National Prevention Insights

  • Investing in prevention saves lives — and money. Every dollar spent on prevention produces an estimated $18 in long-term savings by reducing future costs of crisis response, incarceration, and treatment.
  • Family and environment matter. Nearly half of addiction risk is rooted in home and community conditions—which SENT addresses through housing, mentoring, and neighbor advocacy.
  • Early intervention changes outcomes. When the age of first substance use is delayed from 15 to 21, the risk of addiction drops from 25% to 4%.
  • Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are widespread. Nationally, 75% of high school students report at least one ACE; 20% report four or more. SENT’s trauma-informed and school-based supports work to reduce these risks early.
  • Connection is prevention. Research models like the Icelandic Prevention Model demonstrate that expanding youth recreation and parent engagement can reduce teen drinking rates from over 40% to under 10%.
  • Social conditions drive health. Families with access to affordable housing, childcare, and stable income experience 30–50% lower rates of behavioral and substance-use disorders.

These findings affirm that SENT’s integrated approach—linking housing, education, wellness, and economic opportunity—embodies what the nation’s leading researchers identify as the future of prevention.

SENT’s Model and Recommended Impact Metrics

SENT’s wraparound model is designed to strengthen the protective factors that prevent substance use, while addressing the social and economic conditions that increase risk. Our approach centers on whole-family, whole-community transformation.

 

While SENT continues building long-term evaluation systems, the organization is already tracking meaningful outcomes in several key areas:

 

National Evidence-Based Strategy SENT’s Current Work Aspirational Examples of Measurable Impact
Strengthen protective factors through stable housing. Over 25 completed housing projects; affordable new builds and rehabs. Families maintaining stable housing beyond 12 months and improved neighborhood safety indicators.
Build resilience and reduce ACEs through early intervention. Case management (neighbor advocacy) and wraparound supports. Increased family goal completion and reduced crisis interventions.
Expand youth mental health and coping-skill development. School-based services; “Making Sense of Your Worth,” art, yoga, and music therapy. Students demonstrating improved resilience and help-seeking behaviors.
Promote social connection and mentorship. Campus Connections, Bridge Builders, school and pantry engagement. Growth in youth participation, mentorship matches, and volunteer engagement.
Increase economic stability and opportunity. Workforce pipelines (SER, CHW training, apprenticeships). Participants securing stable employment and reporting income growth.
Improve parental wellbeing and reduce stress. Family support through pantry and childcare transitions. Parents reporting increased confidence and mental health stability.
Enhance food and nutrition access. Southside Filling Station and CSA partnerships. Thousands of households served monthly and increased fruit/vegetable consumption.
Reduce stigma and promote health-based norms. Community Wellness Fairs, storytelling campaigns. Growth in participation and increased understanding of addiction as a health issue.
Link healthcare, education, and community systems. Partnerships with KHI, KDHE, KHF, and schools. Continued growth in new and existing partnerships. 

 

These interconnected areas demonstrate how SENT’s ongoing work already advances national prevention priorities and builds a measurable foundation for long-term neighborhood change.

Communicating Our Shared Impact

SENT believes that lasting change happens when communities, organizations, and individuals work together to create systems of support that strengthen families and neighborhoods. Our story is one of collective investment — not just in programs, but in people.

Connecting Local Action to National Progress

Across the country, research confirms that prevention begins long before crisis. SENT’s whole-family, whole-neighborhood approach reflects these national best practices — building stability through safe housing, food security, mental health support, and workforce opportunities that reduce risk across generations.

Demonstrating the Value of Prevention

Every resource invested in prevention today multiplies its impact for tomorrow. SENT’s work demonstrates that strengthening protective factors — like stable housing, family resilience, and access to mental health services — yields significant community benefits, from improved wellbeing to reduced long-term costs for crisis response.

Creating Generational Change

By surrounding children and caregivers with consistent relationships and opportunities, SENT helps families rewrite their stories. Reducing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and fostering resilience means a stronger, healthier future for Southeast Topeka — one generation at a time.

A Model for Sustainable Community Systems

SENT’s integrated model of housing, wellness, and workforce development reflects the same priorities outlined in national prevention frameworks. Together with our partners, we are proving that prevention is not a single program — it is a system of care that makes thriving possible.

Translate »
Skip to content