Course Overview:

This course is designed to enable practitioners across the Health Advisory Service (HAS) (2001) tiers to screen and assess young people for substance use; and to identify and take appropriate action.

The course will examine the relationship between young people and drug use and give a brief overview of the common substances used and their effects and the potential implications for the user.

What is young people’s drug and alcohol screening?

Screening is a relatively short and simple process that can be done by staff who are not drug and alcohol specialists. Doing this simple screening will help your staff:

• To be able to identify the early signs of drug and alcohol misuse in young people
• To be able to discuss drug and alcohol use with young people
• To be proactive and not wait for problems to escalate
• To know how to respond if a young person needs additional or specialist help

What is young people’s drug and alcohol assessment?

The training will enable attendees to:

• Explore a young person’s use or misuse of substances
• Inform young people how to reduce harm and help them make an action plan for change.

Key Training Outcomes:

• How to identify risk and resilience factors for young people’s drug and alcohol misuse
• How to confidently use young people’s drug and alcohol screening and assessment tools
• How to access build a toolkit of resources for drug and alcohol interventions
• How and when to refer individuals to specialists