The mission of Taking Texas Tobacco Free is to promote wellness among Texans by partnering with healthcare organizations to build capacity for system-wide, sustainable initiatives that reduce tobacco use and secondhand smoke exposure among employees, patients, and visitors.
Preventing Cancers by Bringing Evidence-Based Tobacco Use Interventions to Community and Healthcare Centers Across Texas
MENTAL HEALTH
SUBSTANCE USE
HOMELESSNESS
TRAINING PROGRAM
HEALTH CENTERS
LUNG CANCER
OPIOID TREATMENT
LGBTQI+
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Emergency Guide
A preparedness guide for local response teams & city leadership
Our Emergency Guide for Treating Tobacco Use During An Emergency Situation is out! Read about how to incorporate tobacco treatment services into emergency preparedness plans and processes. There's even a fun "Fact or Fiction?" section throughout our appendices pages. It's a must-have guide to keep things organized during emergency situations while also effectively assisting tobacco users throughout.
Needs Assessment Summary
A summary of Taking Texas Tobacco Free's 2021 needs assessment with healthcare centers across Texas
Page 1 of our Needs Assessment Summary identifies gaps in the delivery of evidence-based tobacco control interventions within Texas healthcare centers serving individuals with behavioral health needs. Page 2 outlines the best practices for tobacco control within Texas healthcare centers and solicits interested centers to partner with Taking Texas Tobacco Free for free, customized support in increasing their capacity to assess and treat tobacco use disorder through evidence-based tobacco control services.
Policy Guide
Recommendations for Behavioral Health Treatment Centers’ Tobacco-Free Workplace Policies and Their Implementation
Our Policy Guide describes best strategies to develop and implement sustainable tobacco-free workplace policies and provides concrete guidelines for policy adoption, implementation, and enforcement at behavioral health treatment centers. It outlines commonalities between successfully implemented policies, discusses possible barriers and ways to overcome them, and provides a sample policy draft to facilitate successful implementation of comprehensive tobacco-free workplace programs.
TREATING TOBACCO USE
Want to take a free online training on how to treat tobacco use? Need some health education material on quitting smoking for your patients in English, Spanish, Chinese, or Vietnamese? Need materials for special populations like individuals who are homeless, sexual minority individuals, teens, e-cigarette users, or hookah users? Want to know more about tobacco use among those with opioid addictions? Want to know more about tobacco cessation medication side effects?
Explore our TOOLS drop-down menu for these free resources and more! In addition to printable materials in multiple languages, we also have helpful videos for patients and practitioners in English and Spanish.
Project Partners
I, Twila Gilman, want to thank you for your interest, concern and thoughtfulness to want to help people that want to better their life, health and appearance by stop[ping] smoking. Your caring and generosity is making it possible for people like me that want to stop, but don’t have money to purchase the patch. I never thought I would ever want to stop smoking. The opportunity is here and I’m trying, thanks to you.
- Twila Gilman, Client
Billy T. Cattan Recovery Outreach
When we started the initiative, it was amazing how wrong we were as mental health professionals because many of us have been in this field a long time and we always assumed that our clients didn’t want to stop smoking because they couldn’t or if they did, their symptoms would get worse. We never thought to ask them, and once we realized our clients [were open to quitting] we really just asked them and they did not want to continue smoking. And once we became an instrument to help them, a lot of the clients were quite successful.