Scaling up AUD Information Resources for Provider Education: The Behavioral Health Counseling Competencies AUD Training Suite

About This Grant

Scaling up AUD Information Resources for Provider Education: The Behavioral Health Counseling Competencies AUD Training Suite Project Summary The alcohol treatment gap is a multi-dimensional phenomenon that requires intervention related to public awareness, access to specialty care, and improvement in the quality and quantity of the broader, behavioral health workforce. The current proposal targets the latter via the development of a training product designed to increase provider knowledge and skill related to alcohol misuse and AUD. This Phase I/II Fast Track STTR proposal will create a didactic and interactive simulation training that will facilitate provider use of the content and tools within NIAAA’s key dissemination resource - Rethinking Drinking. The product will incorporate two additional elements. First, content delivery will be grounded in an NIAAA-funded training program targeting four core competencies of behavioral health counseling: 1) developing a behavior change relationship, 2) providing psychoeducation, 3) setting and monitoring behavior change goals, and 4) providing behavioral skills training. Second, training technology will include proprietary conversation-simulation technology that has a 15-year track record in changing provider behaviors. The team includes the small business applicant, the primary academic partner, and the conversation simulation company. Additional content expertise will be provided by a panel of subject matter experts. The team are established independent investigators, small business award recipients, and long-standing collaborators, which enhances the feasibility and probability of success in meeting the following Specific Aims. Phase I will establish feasibility and technical merit via the development, expert panel review, and end user piloting of the first of the four-module training program – Alcohol and you, establishing a behavior change relationship. Phase II will develop Module 2 How much is too much? providing psychoeducation, Module 3 Thinking about change, goal setting and monitoring, and Module 4 Setting drinking boundaries, providing behavioral skills training and conduct a pilot randomized trial (N = 55) comparing the training suite to a dissemination as usual control using a pre-post, standardized patient design. Commercialization will occur throughout the award period and particularly in year three. The proposed project merges team expertise and technical support to create a novel training product that can increase the quality and quantity of the behavioral health workforce, thereby contributing to reductions in the alcohol treatment gap.