Assessing the benefits and increasing the utility of addiction training for public child welfare workers: a pilot...

Abuse of alcohol or other drugs is at the root of many child welfare problems, yet most workers receive little academic training to cope with these difficulties in their clients. Continuing education is a useful tool to facilitate the adoption of attitudes necessary for effective response to addicted persons. Workers may not approach continuing education with an eye to identifying specific opportunities for changing their practice, however, and impediments in the workplace make implementing change difficult. Continuing education is most effective if supervisors help in setting goals, removing obstacles, and facilitating workers' efforts to incorporate into practice what they learn in the training classroom.