Addictions, Abuse and Recovery Certificate Program

Certificate Program in Addictions, Abuse and Recovery

(This certificate is pending approval by the HLC and NMHED.)

Program Description

The goal of the Addictions, Abuse and Recovery Certificate Program is to provide reflective practitioners with an integrated approach in the treatment of addictions within an individual, families and communities. Special attention will be given to the utilization of evidence-based practices in cultural contexts that lead to meaningful outcomes.

The mission of Southwestern College is Transforming Consciousness Through Education. This mission has guided the College’s success in preparing practitioners to take a deeper look at the relationship between consciousness and compulsivity.   Consciousness awareness is the path to choice and freedom, whereas compulsivity leaves us in trances in which little freedom is possible.

For persons interested in seeking licensure as a Licensed Substance Abuse Associate (LSAA) or Licensed Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselor (LADAC) in the state of New Mexico, this certificate will provide hours that will pertain to either license. This certificate provides each student with 20 hrs in the field of addiction per class, with a total reaching 120 hrs. To apply for the LSAA license, applicants need only 90 clock hours in the field of Alcohol Abuse and Drug Abuse. For the LADAC license applicants will need 276 hours.

96-HOUR CERTIFICATE
4 required core courses
2 elective weekend courses
$365 per workshop

*Graduate students may take these courses for elective credit

Core Courses:

• Holistic Models and Biological Aspects of Addiction and Recovery
• Clinical Skills: Evidence-Based Practices in the Treatment of Co-Occurring Disorders
• Clinical Skills: Motivational Interviewing, Basic to Intermediate Level
• Ethical and Cultural Issues in Addiction

Elective Courses:

• Process Addictions: Sex, Gambling, Gaming, Eating, Shopping and other Compulsive Behaviors
• Adolescents and Addictions
• Clinical Skills: Using Expressive Therapies To Treat Addiction
• Clinical Skills: Using Nature-Based Approaches in the Treatment of Addiction

Skills you will learn:

• Strategies for identifying, diagnosing and treating substance use issues in adolescents and adults.
• Tools from leading Evidence-Based Practices that allow you to engage clients in a meaningful change process.
• Work with resistant and combative clients.
• Engage adolescents using an empowering approach that leads to shifts in conscious awareness about how their behavior affects
  themselves and the environment.
• Help your clients create a lifestyle that promotes health, sobriety and recovery.
• Strategies for working within diverse cultures using an awareness of historical trauma, applied attachment theory and cultural humility.
• Assess for intoxication, withdrawal and long term effects from popular drugs of abuse.
• Tools to concurrently treat trauma and addiction in your clients, providing them with the best chance at recovery.
• Work within ethical guidelines that protect the client and practitioner from situations that can cause distress.

Where you might use these skills:

• Community Mental Health Centers
• Private Practice
• Residential Treatment Centers
• Hospitals
• Primary and Secondary Schools
• Youth Development Programs
• Public and Private Agencies
• Institutions of Higher Learning
• Correctional Facilities
• Medical Settings

Program Director

Brian Serna, LPCC, LADAC, is an international trainer and consultant in Evidence Based Practices (EBPs), ethics and cultural issues in behavioral healthcare. Mr. Serna excels at designing programs that implement EBPs with individuals who are resistant to change and have cultural barriers to accepting treatment. He has extensive experience working with gang-involved adolescent males and homeless youth in Albuquerque, NM. He has trained clinicians in the Adolescent-Community Reinforcement Approach (A-CRA) and Community Reinforcement Approach and Family Training (CRAFT) since 2001 having received his training and supervision directly from Dr. Robert J. Meyers.

Brian is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT) and a Motivational Interviewing Supervisor Trainer (MIST) and has assisted programs in using MI techniques and strategies in working with resistant adolescents. He has trained and consulted with programs in over twenty different states and five different countries. Brian is on the faculty at Southwestern College in Santa Fe, NM. His company, Serna Solutions LLC provides training, consultation services and direct behavioral health services to adolescents and their families. read full bio