As key members of an adolescent’s healthcare team, practitioners in the fields of nursing, social work, medicine, and interprofessional care have an obligation to help prevent and reduce substance use and identify mental health risks with their young patients. Asking about substance use and discussing its impact can prevent many harmful effects to the adolescent’s developing brain and potential future. Asking about mental health and identifying risk early can prevent delay of receiving services and supports. Current and future generations of healthcare professionals need to learn the skills to have these essential conversations with adolescents and young adults about substance use and mental health.
Through support from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Dr. Tracy L. McPherson and the SBIRT Team from NORC at the University of Chicago’s (NORC) Adolescent SBIRT Initiative, the Adolescent Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) Curriculum is now available to provide training materials, tools, and resources to make it easy to gain these essential skills.
Substance use is a risk factor for suicide. Integrating suicide risk screening and intervention into the SBIRT model provides an opportunity to identify and provide care to those at risk of suicide. NORC is thrilled to launch a new suicide prevention suite of services to provide training, technical assistance, and evaluation for medical and behavioral health providers, K-12 schools, colleges and universities, employers, community-based organizations, states, and localities. Below is a list of the services we provide. Please contact us at SBIRTTeam@norc.org to learn more!
The recently updated SAMHSA toolkit is designed to offer strategies to health care providers, communities, and local governments for developing practices and policies to help prevent opioid-related overdoses and deaths. Access reports for community members, prescribers, patients and families, and those recovering from opioid overdose.
The MAT Resource Library is supported by the Los Angeles County Health Agency and Department of Public Health, Substance Abuse Prevention and Control. The site provides practical information on Medications for Addiction Treatment (MAT) for providers across health systems (e.g., physical health, mental health, and substance use disorder systems), as well as for patients.
If you manage the health and well-being of 9- to 18-year-olds, Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention for Youth: A Practitioner’s Guide is for you. The Guide, which was designed to help health care professionals quickly identify youth at risk for alcohol-related problems, is now available in Spanish (PDF).
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism developed the Guide (PDF) and accompanying Pocket Guide (PDF) in collaboration with a team of underage drinking researchers and clinical specialists and practicing health care professionals.
Why Use this Tool?
- It can detect risk early
- It’s empirically based
- It is fast, versatile and free