Congratulations to Dr. Reitzel and the TTTF team for receiving another grant award from the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas! This newest project, titled "Taking Texas Tobacco Free: Dissemination to and Implementation within Agencies Serving Texans Experiencing Homelessness", will allow TTTF to expand our previous work with substance use treatment centers and community agencies into two homeless-serving agencies. Dr. Reitzel will serve as the PI for this grant and was awarded $299,978 to help facilitate its success.

Congratulations to Dr. Reitzel for receiving a new grant! The title of her smoking cessation grant is "Taking Texas Tobacco Free among Substance Users within Community-based Healthcare Settings in Rural and Medically Underserved Areas Across Texas". She will serve as the PI on the grant that is funded by the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas
in the amount of $1,998,572. We're very proud of her!

Since beginning the program in August 2020, Border Region Behavioral Health Centers program champions, Rogelio Rangel and Christina Pena (pictured) have completed their training with us, and the remaining champion, Janie Hernandez, is set to finish in February 2021!  TTTF is proud to be working with these 3 passionate individuals and is excited to witness the increase of tobacco control and cessation knowledge amongst Border Region’s employees through the efforts of the center’s program champions!

We are proud to announce that Vijay Nitturi, a TTTF Undergraduate Initiative/Research Coordinator, has been awarded a scholarship from the University of Houston’s Provost’s Undergraduate Research Scholarship (PURS) program. He will assist with the implementation and evaluation of TTTF’s “Train the Trainer” program in one of our partner local mental health authorities (LMHA), the Heart of Texas Region Center, in the spring of 2021. This LMHA serves patients with behavioral health conditions across six counties. Vijay will also assist in the creation of a step-by-step implementation guide that incorporates “lessons learned” from the implementation and will work with the TTTF team to disseminate the guide and curriculum to other LMHAs across Texas.

Our Undergraduate Team has been a reliable source of help for project implementation and have been very successful in their own achievements as well! Research Coordinator Vijay Nitturi was selected to be a part of the University of Houston’s 2020 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program (SURF). Along with receiving a scholarship, he will participate in a focused, full-time, 10-week research experience under the direction of Dr. Reitzel (TTTF Project Director).
 
Our Undergraduate Research Assistant Matthew Taing was competitively selected into the UHAND program, an education and research partnership between the University of Houston and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. As a UHAND Scholar, Matthew will be working diligently to understand, measure, and address the role of social inequities in worsening disparities related to tobacco use under the direction of Dr. Reitzel (TTTF Project Director, UHAND Project Director).
 
Our Undergraduate Research Assistant Tayma Machkhas has accepted a summer internship on behalf of the Center for Traditional Medicine and the Center for World Indigenous Studies (CWIS) with support from the Leslie Korn Institute for Integrative Medicine. She will be working as a lead intern on a project that is focusing on expanding a graduate course on cultural competence for upcoming health professionals.

TTTF is a multi-component, evidence-based tobacco-free workplace program that has been implemented in local mental health authorities and is being implemented in substance use treatment centers through the support of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT). Dr. Lorraine Reitzel (TTTF Project Director) was recently awarded a grant from CPRIT to expand the TTTF program through a project titled “Taking Texas Tobacco Free Through a Sustainable Education/Training Program Designed for Personnel Addressing Tobacco Control in Behavioral Health Settings.” The project aims to create, disseminate, and implement a training curriculum that can be embedded into new employee, annual, and in-service training events within behavioral health settings. This new component of the TTTF program ultimately seeks to increase capacity for the delivery of ongoing, center-led education about evidence-based practices for tobacco control.

On February 01, 2019, TTTF worked with Santa Maria Hostel at both their Jacquelyn House and Bonita House locations to kick off the day the center became tobacco free! Santa Maria Hostel is one of Texas’ largest multi-site residential and outpatient addiction treatment for centers, and we are so grateful for the chance to work with them on this project! The kick-off event featured carbon monoxide screenings, dissemination of educational materials, and TTTF cupcakes and giveaway items to garner motivation for the initiative.

“Our aim is to change the landscape of how tobacco use is addressed within substance use treatment centers and other community agencies that serve their clientele”

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– Dr. Lorraine Reitzel,

   TTTF Principal Investigator

A big congratulations to our colleague Dr. Isabel Martinez Leal for receiving the 2020-2021 Staff Excellence Award. This award recognizes a staff member in the University of Houston's College of Education (COE) who consistently performs above expectations and is exemplary in their ingenuity, cooperation, and dedication to COE's core values and mission. Her contributions are evident from her community-focused, disparities-mitigation work in breast cancer and tobacco control across Texas. It may be impossible to measure quantitatively the true impact that Dr. Leal has had on the success of the TTTF project over the past five years, but the qualitative impact she has made can be easily measured by the quantity and quality of work she has produced and the improvements that have been made due to her research and hard work.

David Evans, CEO at Integral Care, was recognized by the University of Houston's School of Education as a Friend of Education for his tireless work to help people served at Integral Care quit using tobacco products.

Program Champion Christina Pena (top) conducted a tobacco control and cessation educational training to fellow employees at her Border Regions facility while Bryce Kyburz (TTTF Project Manager, bottom) and Dr. Isabel Martinez Leal (not pictured) observed and collected feedback to share with her at the end.

TTTF Project Manager, Bryce Kyburz, with the help of TTTF staff members, delivered tobacco control and cessation educational trainings to clinical providers and staff from two partnering substance use treatment centers – Texas Clinic Westview and Volunteers of America Riverside– and 1 partnering community agency – Luke Society Clinic. This milestone marks that staff and clinicians from all of our partnering substance use treatment centers and community agencies have been trained on the core aspects of tobacco control and cessation. These centers have now implemented the TTTF program into their facilities and are currently being surveyed on how well TTTF has performed for their staff and clients.

TTTF has recently partnered with Gulf Coast Center, Inspired Hope, and Fort Bend Regional Council. We are so excited to begin working with these centers and assist with their goal to become tobacco-free!

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Gulf Coast Center is a community center that provides services and support for individuals with mental health, substance use, and intellectual and developmental disability needs. Gulf Coast Center also provides community services, such as on-demand transportation services, community education, and disaster recovery support.

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Fort Bend Regional Council is a substance use treatment center that comprehensively addresses substance use through youth prevention, substance use treatment for individuals and families, and outreach programs to help families and communities stay safe and drug-free. Fort Bend Regional Council’s outpatient treatment program implements an intensive series of individual, family, and group counseling sessions. 

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Inspired Hope is a private, outpatient methadone maintenance treatment center offering individual drug counseling for opioid and other substance use.

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If you are a substance use treatment center in Texas that is interested in participating in our comprehensive tobacco-free workplace program, please contact us.

On May 9th and May 10th, TTTF conducted motivational interview trainings at Foundation Communities in Austin and Alpha Home in San Antonio.

View Pictures

The Kansas Tobacco Guideline for Behavioral Health Care Toolkit was developed by the Public Health Law Center for NAMI Kansas and the Kansas Health Foundation. Members of the TTTF team were invited to present at the 39th annual Conference for Behavioral Health in Manhattan, Kansas with support from The National Alliance on Mental Illness - NAMI Kansas where they met with toolkit contributor Rick Cagan. The toolkit contains Kansas-specific examples and case studies for behavioral health and substance use providers and features TTTF (page 43).

The Heart of Texas Region did an outstanding job at the tobacco dependence treatment and education training group. Great job Molly Howard, Jeni Sharp, and Megan Kittner!

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Molly Howard, from the Heart of Texas Region MHMR Center, did a great job on her first tobacco dependence and education training as part of the Train-the-Trainor Program. Molly knocked it out of the park and is ready to provide training to her colleagues!

TTTF congratulates (left to right) Natalie Parks, Jacob Castle, Shelley Smith, and Catherine (Cat) Hood for completing the inaugural train-the-trainer project as program champions at

West Texas Centers. This plaque was presented to each champion to honor their hard work and commitment to addressing tobacco use for the people they serve. The 12 hours of training represents the time each trainer spent receiving training from TTTF staff as well as providing trainings to their employees –however, we know they dedicated even more time studying, preparing, and practicing to be able to deliver the tobacco education curriculum.

Project Director, Dr. Lorraine Reitzel was the guest speaker for the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Data Science Institute Seminar Series 2020. In this very informative seminar, Dr. Reitzel spoke about how "Taking Texas Tobacco Free" is addressing cancer disparities through the dissemination and implementation of a multi-faceted tobacco control workplace intervention. To view the seminar, click here.

TTTF responds to increased tobacco intervention needs in light of COVID-19.
In response to COVID-19, many frontline government, healthcare, and first responder organizations have mobilized to support the safety and wellbeing of vulnerable groups, including individuals who are homeless, have behavioral health disorders, and/or have substance use disorders. Among these organizations is Integral Care – a local mental health authority in Texas and TTTF’s project partner. Integral Care has partnered with the City of Austin, Travis County, Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services, Community Care, The Ending Homelessness Coalition, and many social services providers to address mental health and practical needs of individuals housed in isolation centers developed by the City of Austin.
 
COVID-19 increases the likelihood of tobacco use relapse. Additionally, smoking or vaping practices increase the risks associated with COVID-19. Oftentimes, individuals housed in these isolation centers leave the center to smoke or vape, resulting in increased COVID-19 transmission risk. To learn more about the risks of smoking and vaping during COVID-19, see our fact sheet, which is also available in Spanish.
 
To address the high rates of relapse and risks of smoking during COVID-19, TTTF has partnered with this coalition of organizations addressing the needs of individuals in isolation centers to provide tobacco dependence intervention. TTTF is providing tobacco education to staff/volunteers as well as nicotine replacement therapy and support to residents of the isolation centers to reduce tobacco use.

Download Fact Sheet

The National Behavioral Health Network for Tobacco & Cancer Control is 1 of 8 CDC National Networks working to eliminate cancer and tobacco disparities. In their “Toolkit” they expand on TTTF’s program, featuring our impact in training, knowledge gain, and support to centers. They also feature the TTTF program video which highlights the successes of Billy T. Cattan, an outpatient substance use treatment center working with TTTF.

Texas 21 is a group of organizations whose mission it is to prevent tobacco use. As 95 percent of smokers start before age 21, Texas21 hopes to do this by raising the legal tobacco sale age from 18 to 21. On December 6, 2018, Dr. Lorraine Reitzel (Principal Investigator) spoke at their Statewide Health Disparities Webinar where she discussed the disproportionate rate of tobacco use among those with substance use disorders and the benefits of implementing state-wide programs like TTTF. See the webinar below.