Mixed Forces | Graduate Faculty of Social Work

“Lots of occasions, it’s the psychological well being situation that can drive them to make use of or abuse the substance,” says Roberts, a social employee who works with people affected by opioid use dysfunction (OUD) and different substance use issues (SUD).

Roberts, a 2021 alumnus of Touro’s Graduate Faculty of Social Work (GSSW), gained this perception and extra, throughout his year-long fellowship in a government-funded program. It skilled superior social work and scientific psychological well being counseling college students from the Faculty of Well being Sciences collectively to deal with opioid use and substance use issues.

Now in its third 12 months, the Opioid Workforce Enlargement Program (OWEP) engages the scholars from the 2 disciplines in inter-professional schooling — popularly often called IPE — taught by Touro college and out of doors consultants in each fields.

Studying Collectively and From One One other

OWEP is funded by a $1.3 million grant from the USA Division of Well being and Human Companies’ Well being Sources and Companies Administration (HRSA). Touro is likely one of the choose colleges to take part in this system, which gives stipends to college students to assist battle the opioid disaster and different SUDs amongst medically underserved populations.

The scholars take lessons at their particular person Touro colleges, whereas studying collectively and from each other in OWEP webinars and seminars. These working periods expose them to the completely different fashions of treating OUD/SUD and tips on how to apply that data out within the discipline throughout their internships.

“OWEP exposes college students from each colleges to the final framework and content material of their respective packages, whereas acknowledging the completely different views of social work and scientific psychological well being counseling. OWEP succeeds in growing college students’ understanding in a standard language that helps them work collectively the place they could not have earlier than. While you carry the 2 collectively, they achieve higher data and perception,” says Eric Levine, DSW, LMSW, Touro’s director of social work alumni engagement, persevering with schooling and growth.

When the present cohort completes its research subsequent spring, the OWEP venture may have graduated 66 fellows, working at greater than 15 companies unfold out throughout the 5 boroughs of New York Metropolis in addition to Lengthy Island, Rockland County and New Jersey.

Throughout 2020-2021, the fellows attended lectures on such matters as “Motivational Interviewing”, “Mindfulness as a Remedy Device” and “Addictions, Trauma, Grief and Loss with OUD/SUD”. By displays of case research to their friends and dealing in small breakout rooms, they discovered about new and other ways of approaching habit in a altering discipline.

At this time, Roberts applies the collaborative studying at his full-time job at Bridging Entry to Care in Brooklyn. “It had me noticing sure issues purchasers had been saying,” he explains. “I’d return and see diagnoses of main melancholy. Lots of occasions it was psychological well being that helped them lose their manner.”

Roberts credit OWEP with enhancing his means to make such connections, which he says can result in adjusting remedy plans or referrals to psychological well being clinics. “It was one of many essential issues I discovered,” he remembers. “The coaching places it in your radar.”

Brainstorming with the Group

A spotlight for Eliana Simon, CMHC, an OWEP fellow from Touro’s Medical Psychological Well being Counseling Program, was researching and presenting a case research to the cohort. She says she discovered the worth of taking deep dives right into a affected person’s historical past, fielding questions from colleagues and brainstorming for others’ views.

“The affected person had an SUD with alcohol. I went into her entire historical past, when she began and for what causes,” Simon remembers. “The OWEP expertise helped me anticipate each query — about her diagnostic standards, life levels, targets and setbacks.”

Simon says the coaching has helped her in her present job as a psychological well being counselor at LSA Restoration, an habit rehabilitation outpatient facility in Brooklyn. “I ought to know all of this about all of my sufferers,” says Simon. “It’s such an excellent mannequin. On the finish of the day, it helps you get a extra international context and helps the affected person.”

The Touro OWEP is supported by the Well being Sources and Companies Administration of the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies (HHS) as a part of an award totaling $1,338,822, with no share financed with non-governmental sources. This story doesn’t essentially characterize the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Authorities.