June 2018Vol. 19, No. 5Online Training for Child Welfare, Substance Use Treatment, and Legal Professionals

Collaboration between the child welfare system, substance use treatment facilities, and the courts is important to helping families who are involved with child welfare and have substance use problems achieve better outcomes. The National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare has released free online tutorials to support and facilitate this partnership. These tutorials, which should be taken in order, are divided into the following three parts, each consisting of five modules:

• "Understanding Child Welfare and the Dependency Court: A Guide for Substance Abuse Treatment Professionals"—This tutorial describes how the child welfare system and the dependency court operate, effective engagement strategies and treatment practices for families involved with child welfare systems, services needed by children whose parents have substance use disorders, and ways to improve collaboration among substance use treatment providers, the child welfare system, and the court system.
• "Understanding Substance Use Disorders, Treatment, and Family Recovery: A Guide for Child Welfare Professionals"—This tutorial informs child welfare professionals about alcohol and drug addiction and its impact on parenting, provides engagement strategies, describes the treatment and recovery process for families affected by substance use disorders, provides information on the services needed by children whose parents have substance use disorders, and highlights methods of improving collaboration among substance use treatment providers, the child welfare system, and the court system.
• "Understanding Substance Use Disorders, Treatment, and Family Recovery: A Guide for Legal Professionals"—This tutorial is geared toward legal professionals and provides information about alcohol and drug addiction and its impact on parenting; discusses engagement, treatment, and recovery strategies for families affected by substance use disorders; provides information on services needed by children whose parents have substance use disorders; and highlights methods of improving collaboration among substance abuse treatment providers, the child welfare system, and the court system.

Additionally, the training includes the toolkit, Helping Child Welfare Workers Support Families With Substance Use, Mental, and Co-Occurring Disorders Training Package, which was developed to educate child welfare professionals about substance use and mental health disorders they could encounter when working with families. It consists of six modules that contain a training plan and script, PowerPoint presentations, case vignettes, handouts, and reading materials.

The tutorials and training toolkit are available at https://ncsacw.samhsa.gov/training/default.aspx.