Community Voice Spotlight:
2025 Statewide Collaborative Prevention Convening

The 2025 Statewide Collaborative Prevention Convening was held February 26 and 27, 2025 in a hybrid structure.

Day 1 featured a welcome from the state before keynote speaker Dr. Diana Ramos, Surgeon General of California presented. Then, attendees watched a panel featuring lived experts, which 87% of respondents indicated was useful for promoting authentic collaboration with lived experts. In addition, evaluation respondents expressed their appreciation for the panelists. One respondent wrote, “This was extremely helpful to better understand how we can continuously improve our policies and processes to ensure we are elevating the prevention work, it’s not just about providing the services, our success is on making connections, building trust, stabilizing families so they can thrive in our community.”

After the Lived Expert panel, the convening offered both morning and afternoon workshop sessions. Over the course of the day, 35 workshops were offered. Staff from Strategies TA, CFPIC, the OCAP and CDSS, along with volunteers from the planning committee served as workshop liaisons to ensure every workshop ran smoothly. Recordings of the workshops can be found here: 2025 Statewide Collaborative Prevention Convening Recordings.

Day 2 featured a discussion on the HOPE framework with Dr. Bob Sege, with input shared by Alyssa Burke from Nevada County. 87% of respondents learned “Quite a bit” or “A great deal” from Dr. Sege’s keynote, with one respondent from Ventura County sharing that the keynote was a “great opportunity” and “set the perfect tone for the day”. 41 counties participated in day 2, with a variety of formats. 15 counties chose a fully in-person day 2, 15 were hybrid meetings, and 11 chose to participate fully virtually.

Strategies TA, along with our planning partners, look forward to replicating the success of this year’s convening on March 17 and 18, 2026.