Description
Course Summary:
This course seeks to transform required “paperwork” into clinically useful information.
The Addiction Severity Index (ASI) is one of the most widely used tools for the
assessment of substance use-related problems. Addiction counselors working in
community-based treatment centers administer the ASI yet often fail to use findings
to identify client problems, develop individualized treatment plans, and make referrals
matched to client needs. Intake workers, counselors, supervisors, and managers often
view the ASI assessment as time consuming and not clinically useful. From a program
management perspective, supervisors and administrators often do not utilize treatment
plans to monitor treatment outcomes and/or client retention. This course will review how to use the ASI to integrate these clinical processes.
Course Goals/objectives:
The goals and objectives for this course are for the student to:
• Examine how Addiction Severity Index information can be used for clinical
applications and assist in program evaluation activities;
• Identify differences between program-driven and individualized treatment
planning;
• Gain a familiarization with the process of treatment planning including
considerations in writing and prioritizing problem and goal statements and
developing measurable, attainable, time-limited, realistic, and specific
(M.A.T.R.S.) objectives and interventions;
• Define basic guidelines and legal considerations in documenting client status;
• Provide opportunities to practice incorporating the Addiction Severity Index
information in treatment planning and documentation activities through use
of the Addiction Severity Index Narrative Report and case examples.
Your Course Instructor:
Robert Shearer, PhD
Dr. Robert A. Shearer is a retired professor of criminal justice in the College of Criminal Justice, Sam Houston State University. He has been teaching, training, consulting, and conducting research in the fields of criminal justice, human behavior, and addictions for over thirty-six years. He is the author of over sixty professional and refereed articles in criminal justice and behavior. He is also the author of Interviewing: Theories, Techniques, and Practices, 5th edition published by Prentice Hall. Dr. Shearer has also created over a dozen measurement, research, and assessment instruments in criminal justice and addictions including Law Enforcement Strategies Scale (LSS), Correctional Strategies Scale (CSS), Probation Strategies Scale (PSS), Correctional Treatment Resistance Scale (CTRS), the Comprehensive Substance Abuse Counseling Orientation Inventory (CSACOI), and the Substance Abuse Consequences Scale (SACS).
He has been a psychotherapist in private practice and served as a consultant to dozens of local, state, and national agencies. He has taught courses in interviewing, human behavior, substance abuse counseling, drugs and crime, and correctional counseling. He is currently developing an Interrogation Tactics Scale that measures levels of approval of coercion in interrogations with suspected offenders.
He has been the president of the International Association of Addictions and Offender Counseling and editor of the Journal of Addictions and Offender Counseling. Recently, Dr. Shearer completed a survey of the beliefs of over 300 substance abuse counselors in a large correctional system in the southwestern U.S. He is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation of Oklahoma.