Chronic pain is a common condition for which healthcare providers often prescribe controlled substances, such as opioids. Prescription opioids can alleviate pain in certain patients, but the risk of misuse, abuse, and overdose means providers need to evaluate the risks and benefits for each patient. This course will educate healthcare providers on the role of prescription opioids along with other therapies for chronic pain, using recommendations from current national guidelines.

The goal of this course is to educate healthcare providers on methods for the safe and responsible use of controlled substances for the management of chronic pain.

Health inequities in pain management are prevalent across different healthcare settings. The cultural, ethnic, and social differences influence patients’ and providers’ perceptions and responses to pain. Several studies report higher incidences of pain, disability, and suffering in women and people of color compared to non-Hispanic White people. This course covers influential sociocultural factors grouped into the patient, the provider, and systemic factors. This course helps healthcare professionals become familiar with cultural differences associated with pain perceptions and management. Pain variables such as culture, religion or ethnicity are not part of standardized pain scales. Healthcare workers need to provide culturally competent care to their patients by asking about specific practices, beliefs, and values regarding pain that impacts the patient’s quality of life.

The goal of this course is to provide nurses, physicians, and social workers with an overview of cultural sensitivity in the management of pain.

Safely managing pain for the people in your care requires you to be knowledgeable about pain management recommendations. It is important to understand the risk factors for misuse and substance use disorder (SUD) as well as the signs that someone has a SUD and how to treat it. Unfortunately, SUD is one of the drivers of drug diversion. Therefore, it is also critical that you understand drug diversion tactics and behaviors so you can help prevent it. The goal of this course is to educate healthcare providers in all settings on pain management and preventing substance use disorder and diversion.
 

Opioid use disorder (OUD) is a chronic but treatable disease. The problematic use of available and accessible opioids in the community contributes to rising numbers of deaths caused by overdose, compounding a public health crisis. Behavioral health professionals are well poised to address preventable deaths caused by OUD by learning about the factors involved in its development, symptoms, and effective person-centered and recovery-oriented treatments.

The goal of this course is to provide addictions, behavioral health counseling, marriage and family therapy, nursing, psychology, and social work professionals in health and human services settings with an opportunity to apply your existing knowledge to assess and intervene with an at-risk adult.

It was once assumed that addressing underlying conditions was the best way to treat suicidality. We now know that suicidal people need interventions that directly target suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Suicide-specific interventions will give you the tools to help clients manage suicide risk.

In this course, you will learn about specific evidence-based and research-informed interventions that directly target suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Through case examples, you will gain a better understanding of ways to implement these strategies.

The goal of this course is to provide addictions, behavioral health counseling, marriage and family therapy, nursing, psychology, and social work professionals with knowledge about evidence-based, suicide-specific interventions.

Suicide is the second leading cause of death for adolescents and transition age youth (TAY). This course provides an overview of risk factors, protective factors, and warning signs of suicide specific to this population. It also describes suicide assessment strategies and interventions that reduce the risk of suicide in adolescents and TAY.

This course will provide you with information about the numerous risk and protective factors of suicide. You will learn effective screening approaches you can use to identify elevated risk. You will also learn how to follow a positive screening with an in-depth clinical assessment, including several different models you can use to guide your assessment. The goal of this course is to provide alcohol and drug counseling, marriage and family therapy, counseling, psychology, and social work professionals in health and human services with skills to identify individuals at increased risk of suicide.

Veterans die by suicide at higher rates than non-veterans and often have unique factors that impact their risk. This course explains factors that specifically increase suicide risk in veterans. It also reviews screening and assessment strategies to identify veterans at risk of suicide. Lastly it describes effective interventions and treatment options to reduce suicide risk in this population.

This multi-lesson module provides suicide training according to the state of Washington requirements. The four lessons cover:

Lesson 1: Assessing and Screening for Suicide Risk: provides skills to identify individuals at increased risk of suicide

Lesson 2: Overview of Evidence-Based, Suicide-Specific Interventions: provides knowledge about evidence-based, suicide-specific interventions

Lesson 3: Community-Based Interventions to Reduce Suicide Risk: provides information about community-based, upstream suicide prevention approaches

Lesson 4: Preventing Suicide Among Veteran Populations: provides skills in assessment and intervention to reduce suicide risk among veterans

The Opioid Epidemic is a major public health crisis, leading to widespread addiction, overdose, and death. This course provides a comprehensive overview of the epidemic, covering the classification and pharmacology of opioids, the mechanisms of addiction, and the societal impact of opioid misuse.

Participants will learn how opioids interact with the nervous system, the progression from prescription misuse to illicit drug use, and key public health interventions aimed at mitigating the crisis. The course will also explore clinical management strategies, including opioid overdose response, withdrawal treatment, and harm reduction approaches like naloxone distribution and treatment. 

Americans are using opioids at an alarming rate, whether through prescriptions or illegal means. Parallel to this problem is the use of opioids during pregnancy.

The goal for this course is to present RNs, PAs, physicians, and entry-level drug and alcohol counselors in inpatient or outpatient settings with best practices for identifying and managing pregnant women who are using opioids.

Opioid misuse is a leading cause of unintentional injury and death among adolescents and young adults (Hudgins et al., 2019). More than 80% of adolescents who die from an opioid overdose do so accidentally, reflecting in part their lack of understanding and underestimation of the dangers inherent in the misuse of opioid medications (World Health Organization [WHO], 2023).

Along with the increased risk of lethal overdose, adolescents who misuse prescription opioids are at increased risk of severe medical complications that necessitate emergency treatment, progression to drugs with even greater potential for lethality such as heroin, and the development of a substance use disorder (Davis et al., 2020).

The goal of this course is to provide addictions, behavioral health counseling, marriage and family therapy, nursing, psychology, and social work professionals in health and human services with information on the development, prevalence, and treatment of opioid use disorders in adolescent and young adult populations.