Building and testing the Life Enhancement and Advocacy Programming digital training tool (LEAPLink) to better serve people with lived experience of homelessness and substance use disorder

ABSTRACT Even after they move into housing, people who have experienced homelessness (PEH) are disproportionately impacted by substance use disorder and substance-related harm. Programs supporting this population’s health-related social needs, which are known to impact the experience of substance use disorder, may help build community, improve quality of life, and reduce substance-related harm. One such evidence- based approach, the Life Enhancing Advocacy Program (LEAP), comprises a flexible, 3-step participatory process by which 3 types of activities are cocreated and stewarded with a community advisory board: a) administrative leadership opportunities through which PEH codesign programming, b) PEH-driven meaningful activities, and c) alternative pathways to recovery that are community-designed, harm-reduction oriented, and more expansive than typical substance-use treatment. However, the dissemination of such community-based participatory approaches is often stymied by the research-to-practice gap: Academic publications and conferences are inadequate vehicles to ensure these evidence-based practices are accessible and useable by providers of housing, clinical and social services. We aim to bridge this gap in this STTR phase 1 application. We plan to integrate community-based participatory and human-centered design principles in co-developing – together with PEH and a nonprofit agency that serves them – and initially testing a digital training tool for the LEAP. The resulting product for commercialization, the LEAPLink, will entail a learning management system, video-on-demand training, and synchronous consultation to help providers create a locally successful LEAP via our team’s transferrable process and framework. Our Aim 1 milestone is the LEAPLink prototype cocreated with our community advisory board that will advance for usability testing in Aim 2. Our Aim 2 milestone is to complete lab-based usability testing of the LEAPLink and achieve a System Usability Scale score of 70 or greater, which would indicate an adequate system to advance to Aim 3. Our Aim 3 milestone is to test the feasibility, acceptability, and knowledge-building capacity of the LEAPLink prototype. Successful completion of this STTR phase 1 project will provide a strong foundation for a future STTR phase 2 application for a randomized controlled trial testing the effectiveness of LEAPLink in improving provider knowledge, supporting the application of the LEAP, and building recovery capital. If successful, our team’s overarching efforts will build a strong evidence base for the successful commercialization and dissemination of the first community-driven digital training tool to help professionals in housing, clinical and social settings better support community, reduce substance-related harm, and improve quality of life for PEH with SUD.