Addiction Technology Transfer Center of New England
August 22, 2025
Read a Q&A Below
Kelli Scott, PhD and Sara Becker, PhD, faculty members in Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine Center for Dissemination and Implementation Science, the Department of Medical Social Sciences (MSS), and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences received a subcontract from the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Chan Medical School to serve as a key strategic partner on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)-funded New England Addiction Technology Transfer Center (ATTC). The overall Principal Investigator of this award is Rosemarie Martin, PhD, Professor of Preventive and Behavioral Medicine and Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at UMass Chan. Other key strategic partners include Brown University School of Public Heath, Adcare Educational Institute, and the Health Education and Training Institute of Maine. Scott and Becker serve as the ATTC Evaluator and Implementation Specialist, respectively, and they work closely with Mika Kearns, ATTC Communications and Application Coordinator.
What are the aims of the project?
This newly funded SAMHSA award supports the New England ATTC, which has been continuously funded since 1993 and was historically housed at the Brown University School of Public Health. In the prior grant cycle, Becker was the Principal Investigator, Martin was Co-Director and Scott was the Evaluation Director: the new leadership structure reflects the three leaders' transition to different organizations and maintenance of an intact, highly productive team. The New England ATTC is one of 10 regional centers throughout the United States dedicated to providing training and technical assistance (TTA) to the substance use treatment and recovery workforce. The New England ATTC has three specific goals: 1) to heighten the awareness, knowledge, and skills of the workforce in evidence-based, Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate (CLAS) treatment and recovery support services through the provision of basic and targeted TTA; 2) to promote systems-change and increase organizational capacity to those seeking to implement evidence-based, CLAS-adherent behavioral treatment and recovery support services through provision of intensive TTA; and 3) to foster local, state, regional and national alliances among practitioners, researchers, policy makers, funders, and the recovery community.
What are your next steps?
Over the next five years, the New England ATTC will provide TTA to 10,000 members of the addiction treatment workforce through face-to-face and instructor led technology delivered courses, intensive summer educational programs, self-paced online courses, an array of products and resources, and a three-tiered implementation strategy called the Science to Service Laboratory. Scott and Becker will also co-lead the ATTC’s Contingency Management and Stimulant POWER team, a team of researchers, clinicians, and individuals with lived experience of substance use who will develop evidence-based and locally informed resources to support the implementation of contingency management for stimulant use disorder. Scott will also develop and execute the regional center’s comprehensive evaluation plan. Finally, the Northwestern-based ATTC team will leverage our deep implementation science expertise at the Center for Dissemination and Implementation Science to develop and deploy a suite of new implementation science educational offerings to support practice implementation in substance use treatment settings.
What do you hope will come out of this funded research?
Successful completion of the New England ATTC’s goals is expected to result in long term improvements in substance use treatment and recovery workforce recruitment and retention across the six New England states and nine federally recognized indigenous tribes served by the regional center. Additionally, the ATTC’s TTA and POWER team activities will support key national workforce development in contingency management for stimulant use, one of the most effective, yet underused treatments for addiction. We hope that the work of the New England ATTC will ultimately serve to improve the quality of treatment and recovery services for individuals who use drugs across New England.