John Wodarski, PhD, received a new SAMHSA grant entitled “Tennessee’s Evidence Based Substance Abuse Disorder Treatment Education of the Social Work Student.”  This grant will span the period of 4/30/20 to 4/29/22.

John Wodarski is a Professor in the College of Social Work, serving with the Center for Behavioral Health Research. He has served as a principal investigator on multiple projects funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and foundations. His interests include substance abuse, HIV/AIDS and evidence-based treatments.

Tennessee and other southeastern states are best described as experiencing an epidemic of substance abuse, particularly opioid abuse.

The “Tennessee Expansion of Social Work Practitioner Education” program is intended to expand substance use disorder (SUD) education into the standard curriculum of relevant healthcare and health services education programs, beginning with the University of Tennessee Knoxville and Nashville campuses. 

Through the mainstreaming of this education, the ultimate goal is to expand the number of practitioners who will deliver high-quality, evidence-based SUD treatment and thus reduce the stigma associated with SUD.  A comprehensive, evidence-based SUD-SBIRT curriculum will be developed, implemented and evaluated.  The curriculum will include SBIRT (Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment) screening, assessment and treatment strategies and their application, particularly with regard to alcohol, marijuana, stimulants, and opioids. Electronic modes of teaching, i.e., websites, chat rooms, CD ROM presentations, and electronic newsletters will be used in training social work students in the appropriate interventions and will allow for rapid and efficient dissemination of information to stakeholders.  

Upon completion, the SUD-SBIRT curriculum will be made available to other schools/colleges of social work in the Southeast and to healthcare professionals throughout the nation. The state-of-the-art electronic services provision will enable access to a significantly higher percentage of the population who currently lack such access to treatment services. The experiences and success of our five previous SAMHSA-funded e-therapy grants that have utilized SBIRT have paved the way for the implementation of the proposed program.