UTC 4: Basic Counseling Skills for Addiction Professionals
Enrolment options
The Universal Treatment Curriculum 4: Basic Counselling Skills for Addiction Professionals introduces and provides opportunities to practise essential counselling skills for substance use disorder treatment. The course covers the helping relationship, counselling approaches, core communication skills, motivational interviewing, group counselling and psychoeducation for clients and families. It also explores how to teach clients practical skills that support recovery.
By the end of this course, learners will be able to:
- Explain the foundations of an effective helping relationship and demonstrate core counselling skills, including reflective listening, open-ended questions, affirmations and summarising.
- Apply basic motivational interviewing principles and methods to support motivation and respond to ambivalence, using counselling strategies appropriate to the client’s stage of change.
- Demonstrate basic group facilitation skills and develop psychoeducation content for clients and families, recognising the different purposes of group counselling and psychoeducation.
- Demonstrate basic approaches to teaching recovery skills, including relapse prevention, problem-solving and goal-setting, and develop a personal plan to integrate the learning into practice.
The course is primarily intended for:
- Entry-level addiction counsellors developing their individual and group counselling skills.
- Professionals new to substance use disorder treatment who need basic counselling skills for their work, including early career professionals.
- Professionals beginning to supervise treatment workers who are new to the field, seeking a review of these skills and approaches.
Course Format: Self-led
Language: English
NAADAC CE Credits: 33