Planned Meetings

Drs. Belinda Sims, Elizabeth Robertson, Eve Reider, and Aria Crump, all of DESPR, are collaborating with staff from the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute on Mental Health, the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, the Administration for Children and Families, and the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration to plan a meeting entitled Intervening Early: Progress and Opportunities in Child Service Settings, scheduled for September 18-19, 2007. This meeting is being supported through NIDA's Office of Science Policy and Communications. The purpose of this meeting is to review existing prevention programs for children 0-5 and their families that are designed to improve child, parent and family outcomes in a variety of domains (e.g., social and emotional development, mental health, education, parenting, substance use, family functioning), with a particular focus on programs delivered within child service settings. Goals of this meeting include identifying critical research gaps that need to be addressed to 1) foster novel program development through the translation of basic research on self-regulatory processes, and 2) increase the uptake and implementation of effective preventive interventions for young children and their families within child service settings, including setting characteristics.

A meeting on the social neuroscience and the development of treatment and prevention interventions is being planned by Drs. Lisa Onken, Steve Grant, Nicolette Borek, Cecelia Spitznas and Melissa Riddle of NIDA's Division of Clinical Neuroscience and Behavioral Research, with Dr. Elizabeth Ginexi from NIDA's Division of Epidemiology, Services, and Prevention Research. The meeting will be held October 1 & 2, 2007 in Bethesda, Maryland.

Dr. Harold Gordon, DCNBR, organized and will chair a mini-symposium titled Understanding the Neurobiology of Drug Addiction by studying Sleep Disturbances and Circadian Rhythms at the upcoming Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience to be held in San Diego, November 3-7, 2007.

NIDA will host the seventh Blending Conference at the Duke Energy Center in Cincinnati, Ohio on June 2-3, 2008. This 2-day conference is designed to bring clinicians and researchers together to examine the most up-to-date scientific drug abuse and addiction findings and their application to clinical practice.

The next National CTN Steering Committee Meeting is planned for September 23-28, 2007 in Rockville, Maryland.