Overview
Training clinicians in the treatment of co-occurring
psychiatric and substance use disorders can be organized around
research-derived clinical consensus best practice principles of
treatment for co-occurring disorders. Such principles have been
developed and disseminated through the SAMHSA Managed Care Initiative
Panel on Co-occurring Disorders (Minkoff, 19981).
Each principle has specific implications for core clinical competencies
that become the focus of targeted training for individual clinicians and
groups of clinicians. CODECATTM
presents these principals, identifies the expected
clinician core competencies associated with each principle, and provides
a format for either supervisory evaluation or clinician self-evaluation
of these competencies. Note that these core competencies include
Attitudes and Values, as well as Knowledge and Skills. Theses are
intended to be applicable to ALL behavioral health clinicians,
regardless of background in mental health or substance disorder
treatment, and regardless of seniority or type of licensure. They
represent the basic necessary clinical clinical requirement to implement
a welcoming, accessible, integrated, continuous, and comprehensive
system of care for consumers with co-occurring disorders.
CODECATTM
is not intended to evaluate or instruct clinicians on the
disorder-specific elements of mental health or substance use disorder
treatment. Rather, CODECATTM
is a tool to provide an integrated framework to evaluate
clinicians' training needs and to provide a framework within which
disorder-specific treatment can be understood and applied more
effectively. CODECATTM
is both a competency assessment tool and a self-teaching
tool that raises awareness of desired Attitudes, Values, Knowledge and
Skills.
