Expansion of Practitioner Education in Substance Use Treatment in Alaska's System of Higher Education - Summary: Over two years, through a curriculum of modularized best treatment practices, the proposed project seeks to educate 300 students of diverse cultural, ethnic and racial backgrounds enrolled in human services, social work, behavioral health and nursing programs in five campuses in Alaska to increase awareness, understanding, and knowledge of best treatment practices and their use to reduce substance and alcohol use of people in clinical care.
Population Served: The project will educate students of diverse cultural, ethnic, and/or racial backgrounds involving Alaska Native, Hawaiian, Pacific Islands, Asian, African American, Hispanic Latino, or Caucasian.
Strategies and Interventions: The project will incorporate state of the art distance electronic methods of education and training involving on-line delivery of modules addressing professional use of best treatment practices. In the first year, the project staff will work with faculty from 9 universities or colleges within the University of Alaska system, and the only tribal college in Alaska to incorporate online and digital substance use treatment education content. The project will incorporate those modules within the curricula of existing social work, human service, and nursing programs at associate, bachelors, masters, and doctoral levels (in the case of nursing). In the first year, the project will move systematically through multiple revisions of the curriculum, build 5 modules, deliver, test, and assess those modules across Alaska universities and colleges, and revise them based on systematic data obtained from students and instructors. In the second year, continue to move through iterations of the curriculum and prepare an additional cohort of faculty to use the modules within designated courses. In the second year, the project will continue to test the curriculum and its modules, revise them based on instructor and student feedback, and finalize a new version of the modularized curriculum as the principal product.
Project Goals and Measurable Objectives: The project will increase the capacity of students across multiple degree and workforce levels to gain comprehensive understanding of substance use disorders (Goal 1), develop a hierarchical, sequential and coherent SUD/AUD modularized curriculum for distance delivery (Goal 2), increase student self-efficacy and proficiency in SUD/AUD treatment and recovery practices (Goal 3), ensure that students have the attitudes, knowledge and skills to engage in responsive and effective SUD/AUD treatment (Goal 4), and enhance student eligibility for certification/licensure in their designated professional degree areas and/or in chemical dependency (Goal 5). A full 80% of students will increase their knowledge and understanding of prevention and treatment of SUD/AUD disorders and gain awareness of key best treatment practices. A full 70% will demonstrate increases in their treatment self-efficacy.
