Build Your Confidence Discussing Cannabis, Alcohol, and Tobacco Use with Veterans

Location: Virtual/Online

Instructor: Josie Tracy, PhD, Harness Harm Reduction and Mental Health, PLLC 

CE credits: 1.5 APA CE's (pending)

Dates/Times:

Wednesday, Oct 28, 9:00am - 10:30am

Thursday, Dec 3, 9:00am - 10:30am

Monday, Jan 11, 9:00am - 10:30am

Tuesday, Feb 9, 9:00am - 10:30am

Wednesday, Mar 3, 9:00am - 10:30am

Thursday, Apr 8, 9:00am - 10:30am

Monday, May 10, 9:00am - 10:30am

Tuesday, June 8, 9:00am - 10:30am

Course Description:

Do you find approaching the topic of substance use with your veteran clients to be overwhelming, intimidating, or just plain awkward? This course is designed to increase your comfort assessing and providing brief interventions for substance use problems faced by veteran therapy clients. Learn how to have these conversations in the least stigmatizing, most collaborative manner. Develop skills to assess client motivation and provide collaborative psychoeducation about substance use. Determine how to integrate interventions for the most common substance use disorders into your existing treatment plans. Finally, apply these skills in the context of veteran culture and veteran-specific needs.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this training, participants will be able to:

1. Implement a one-item screening question to assess for substance use in their veteran clients
2. Articulate important considerations for alcohol, cannabis, and tobacco treatment by substance type
3. Formulate a client treatment plan that honors veterans’ preference for priority of problems to address, and integrates substance-related goals into a standard mental health treatment plan
4. Perform a new Motivational-Interviewing-based skill via roleplay practice to improve collaborative discussion and treatment planning for veteran substance use

References:

Bahji, A. (2024). Navigating the Complex Intersection of Substance Use and Psychiatric Disorders: A Comprehensive Review. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 13(4), 999. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm13040999

McNabb, M., Durante, K.A., Trocchio, S., Ritter, DJ., MacCaffrie, R., Brum, A., Mandile, S., & White, S. (2023). Self-reported Medicinal Cannabis Use as an Alternative to Prescription and Over-the-counter Medication Use Among US Military Veterans. Clinical Therapeutics, 45, 562-577. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinthera.2023.04.003

Osborne, A. K., Wilson-Menzfeld, G., McGill, G., & Kiernan, M. D. (2022). Military service and alcohol use: a systematic narrative review. Occupational medicine (Oxford, England), 72(5), 313–323. https://doi.org/10.1093/occmed/kqac045