Alison Wood-Drain, MSW, MPA
NC Problem Gambling Program Youth Prevention and Treatment Specialist
LifeWorks
MH, DD, SAS NC Department of Health and Human Services

Alison Wood-Drain is the NC Problem Gambling Youth Prevention and Treatment Specialist and manages over 60 statewide prevention grants and trains and provides technical support to school staff on gambling as a high-risk behavior for adolescents and co-occurring needs and a “train the trainer” workshop on, Stacked Deck, an evidence-based prevention curriculum. Alison helped edit the guidebook and provided feedback from focus groups and shared data for the Second Edition of Stacked Deck, which was released in 2022.  She was part of a team that evaluated the updated Stacked Deck curriculum in a learning management system. She also spearheaded an initiative to create self-paced learning modules and a lunch-time webinar series on gambling disorder for clinicians who work with adolescents. Alison has recently taken on the task of creating a self-paced module series to provide knowledge gains and basic understanding of skills needed for behavioral health clinicians to work with adolescents focusing on gambling, gaming, digital media overuse and co-occurring needs. Alison lives in Chapel Hill, NC with her nine-year-old daughter, chihuahua mix, and golden retriever.