The Universal Prevention Curriculum for Substance Use aims to address the need for knowledgeable and competent professionals working in the prevention field. This training series is designed to meet the current demand for an evidence-based curriculum for substance use prevention that would complement the existing Universal Treatment Curriculum for Substance Use Disorders (UTC) for addiction treatment professionals. It has been developed for managers and supervisors of government programs and community-based organizations as well as prevention practitioners for working in evidence-based prevention at the grassroots level.
CORE Course 10: Introduction to the Universal Prevention Curriculum Series for Practitioners
The CORE Course is composed of 10 modules representing different aspects of prevention science and its application to practice. It is designed to give participants a foundation in the knowledge and skills needed to undertake evidence-based prevention programming at the community level. The course provides an overview of the basic processes that underlie addiction and the brain, basic pharmacology of psychoactive substances, and preventive mechanisms that have been found to be effective in more than 30 years of prevention science. It also provides skills-building in areas such as reviewing data needed to assess the substance use problem; working with a prevention implementation planning approach; and developing logic models to assist in that planning. It is required as a pre-requisite for participation in the specialty tracks. Each of the specialty tracks is self-contained but it is necessary to take the CORE first as an introduction to the training series.