Substance Use Disorders Keys To Education

INCREASING ACCESS TO SCIENCE-BASED SUBSTANCE USE CONTENT

The Substance Use Disorders Keys to Education Product (SUD Keys) was designed by the Mountain Plains (MP) and Pacific Southwest (PS) Addiction Technology Transfer Centers (ATTCs) for educators, clinical supervisors, and recovery support specialists with the goal of increasing access to science-based substance use content. Ensuring that academic courses and training events have current information on SUDs can be a daunting task, especially for faculty or trainers who do not have extensive SUDs expertise. The SUD Keys are designed to be added into existing courses and trainings and serve as a method of infusing new knowledge (typically evidence-based practices (EBPs)) and experiential learning activities into existing courses/trainings. Curriculum infusion has been utilized as one solution for finding ‘curricular room’ (Gassman et al., 2001) for substance use disorder (SUD) and mental health (MH) information as well as a way of highlighting SUD/MH information within a context of a discipline (Redding & Selleck, 1999). Advocates of curriculum infusion promote the idea that science-based knowledge will be used more in professional practice if it is ‘functionally relevant’ (Taylor & Rafferty, 2003) meaning, taught within a specific discipline or profession.

The SUD Keys feature slide decks and student/participant exercises in a variety of SUD topics. In keeping with the curriculum infusion style, the slide decks and/or videos are brief with the goal of the material being able to be taught in 5-10 minute segments, although some topics may take longer. The original PowerPoint slides are available for download and include presenter notes and references. Many of the segments include a video (MP4) recording of the presentation that can be used as an alternative delivery method. In addition, a reference list for each topical section is available for download.

Finally, the SUD Keys is a dynamic document that is designed to be flexible and responsive to emerging EBPs and promising practices, therefore new materials and topic sections will be added in the future. Please check this site to view new topics, slide decks, classroom exercises, videos, and test questions/case studies for educators, trainers, and clinical supervisors.

Learn more: https://mtplainsattc.org/sud-keys/