Do Students Have a Right to Empirically-Supported Training on Empirically-Supported Interventions: The Case for SBIRT

Screening Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) is an empirically-supported public health approach to identifying and briefly intervening with individuals with risky substance use. It has been endorsed by the U.S. Surgeon General and the U.S. Prevention Task force as a key strategy to reduce the burden of disease associated with alcohol and other substance use. This roundtable discussion focuses on a three-year dissemination project funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The presenters implemented practice skills training in SBIRT in three courses, including two at the master's level and one at the bachelor's level. Students in these courses were invited into a randomized trial examining two different trainings methods, as well as a certificate program where they were paired with a field instructor who was trained by our project to supervise interns. Panelists include the principal investigator of the project, instructors who have taught SBIRT-infused courses, and two students who took our master's level SBIRT course. Panelists will address the following themes, with strong emphasis on facilitating dialogue throughout the roundtable about implementing curriculum on empirically-supported interventions:

1. We will provide an overview of the project and briefly review results from our randomized study for master's level students. Participants were students enrolled in our master's (i.e., 10 sections; n = 259) level substance use treatment courses. Classrooms were randomized to receive either teaching as usual (TAU) or teaching as usual plus computer simulations (TAU+CS). Students completed audio recorded role plays prior to SBIRT training and again after training was complete. Students enrolled in TAU classrooms completed written assignments of equivalent duration to the computer simulations. Coders who were blind to the condition of the classroom, as well as whether tapes were pre- or post-tests, evaluated role play recordings using a reliable session adherence checklist. Hierarchical Linear Models, accounting for nesting in classes, were run separately for undergraduate and graduate courses.

2. We will discuss the bachelor's level curriculum, and briefly review the findings from this separate randomized controlled trial (i.e., 4 sections; n= 92). We will highlight how we differentiated the BSW level SBIRT curriculum from the MSW level curriculum. Besides these differences in curricula, the methodology for this separate controlled study was identical to that for master's students.

3. We will discuss the development of SBIRT-approved field sites that hosted students in the SBIRT Scholars certificate program, highlighting our published findings from this aspect of the project.

4. Two students who were enrolled in the master's level courses as students and are now PhD students will reflect on their experiences as students taking these courses. They will answer audience questions.