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Meeting People Where They're At: OUD Treatment Access Simulation

Read more about this free, pilot simulation-based training and register for an upcoming date below. Please read the full description as this is a highly interactive training and it will be helpful for you to understand the context before attending!
Training sessions will be held on the following dates and locations: Wednesday, June 17th from 1pm - 5pm at UMSL Millenium Student Center, St. Louis Please email grace.iverson@mimh.edu with any questions!
Note that space in this training is limited; please let us know if you need to cancel, but please do share with others in your network!

Training Description:

 In the context of a highly toxic, criminalized drug supply, severe housing crisis, and under-staffing in substance use and behavioral health organizations, providing and accessing meaningful care and resources can be extremely challenging.  

Buprenorphine and methadone greatly reduce risk of death and improve quality of life for people with opioid use disorder, and treatment programs that offer them can often provide program participants with other crucial resources. Despite this, treatment engagement and retention rates are low and provider burnout and turnover rates are high.   

Many factors play into this, but one issue is that not every person with an opioid use disorder is able to effectively access and remain engaged with highly structured treatment systems, due to their present life circumstances. This training helps practitioners build on their existing skills by identifying ways they can adjust their individual practice and workflow to better serve participants, while still working within their existing organizations and systems.  

The training is a unique simulation and discussion-based session, offered in person only. Through a simulated substance use disorder (SUD) treatment intake process, training participants will experience both skilled and unskilled intake, from both the perspective of a clinic staff member and a treatment participant.

The goal is to deepen understanding of  challenges and opportunities for supporting clients in meeting their needs and goals (including but not limited to accessing medication for opioid use disorder), as well as to identify opportunities in which individual practitioners can make changes to their practice to improve patient dignity, access and autonomy. While systems change takes time, this training focuses on things that workers have control over right now in their individual practice. This training is recommended for those who work in (or plan to work in) SUD treatment or other clinical settings, though anyone can join and find valuable takeaways to apply in their work.  

The training is highly interactive – you will be provided with materials for the simulation, but it is trainee-driven. You will be moving around the room, talking with others, and partaking in a mock treatment clinic setting for the majority of the training, followed by a group discussion.Your experience and expertise will shape the overall training, so come ready to engage, share, and hear from others.  

A bit more detail on how this works:  

We’ll start by telling you about the training and how the simulation works.We’ll do two rounds of simulation.  

Round 1  

Everyone will be randomly assigned roles. Half of the group will be treatment participants, and the other half will be clinic staff (practitioners). Everyone will receive materials with information about their role, including some background and motivations for the role they're taking on. Clinic staff will have guides about what they will say and do in their roles in the simulation.  We’ll run through the first round for 30-40 minutes, then we’ll take a break.  

Round 2  

Everyone who was a treatment participant in Round 1 will now get a clinic staff role, and vice versa.  We’ll run round 2 in a similar manner for 30-40 minutes, then take a short break.  

Discussion

We’ll all come together to discuss the simulation, what came up, and practices we can bring to our own roles and work contexts.  

 

This simulation provides practical, hands-on learning, and is written based on real life experiences of those seeking and providing SUD treatment. For some people, this may be triggering or challenging, as many have first-hand experiences with these systems. While we hope you walk away from this training with ideas and inspiration for how to provide the best possible experiences for others in a treatment or other substance use setting, we know some people may not want to engage with this training at all, or may need to take breaks or opt out of certain activities. We encourage you to engage as it makes sense for you and reach out to us with questions before, during and after the training. This is a new training format for us, and we’re learning as we go – we would love to hear what you think of it, how it could be improved, and any other feedback.

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