ICUDDR Blog

** This excerpt is from an ICUDDR Blog Post. 

Why Is It So Hard to Implement Evidence Based Practices?

by Kim Johnson

When I was getting my first graduate degree to become a child and family therapist, I took a class in addiction studies and completed my internship in an addiction treatment program. When I was hired for my first job as a family therapist working with families at risk of losing their children to child protective services due to child abuse or neglect, I never assessed parents for substance use disorders, never raised substance use as a possible underlying cause of child neglect and never recognized obvious signs of substance misuse like lots of empty alcohol containers piled up in the kitchen sink.

Now you may think, “What a terrible therapist Kim was!” And probably you are right, but I was a new therapist practicing as part of a team and I adopted the practices of my work team rather than using the knowledge I gained through my education. And that is the norm. Our students go from our academic environment where we try to fill them with as much knowledge of best practice and science into work places whose practices may have been established for many years with little change. If our program graduates are to succeed in the workplace, they adopt the norms and fulfill the expectations of the workplace regardless of what they learned in school. Otherwise they would not stay employed for very long! 

So, providing good science based education is only a first step. Engaging with community providers, offering to sponsor continuing education, to provide technical assistance in adopting new practices, to work with clinical supervisors to support students and new practitioners in utilizing evidence based practices are all necessary practices to ensure your graduates are able to use the great education that you gave them.  You may be thinking, “But Kim, I can barely keep up with my workload now, how am I to conduct all these additional duties?”

To read the rest of this post, use this link ICUDDR Blog Post

Want to guest blog?  We would love to hear from you!  Email Cary at chopkin3@usf.edu  

Additional posts:

- Welcome to the first ICUDDR blog post

- Addiction is a Disease

Member Profile

The Catholic University "Nuestra Señora de la Asunción" (UC), distinguished with the “Top of the Mind” Award in March 2019, is developing several training courses and specializations in the Prevention and Treatment of Addictions. These will be offered through the Department of Psychology in the coming year. Established in 1963 as the first in the country to initiate university studies in psychology, the department is currently under the direction of Diana S. Lesme Romero, who has been working with ICUDDR since its foundation and is currently a member of the ICUDDR Board of Directors.

Since its conception and designation as an entity of higher education by the Catholic hierarchy of Paraguay in 1960, The Catholic University has maintained a clear commitment to educational excellence and to fostering the intellectual, scientific and cultural education of its students. Today, it spans 16 cities in territorial coverage, and its infrastructure has expanded to include six campuses and two academic units.

In November 2016, the School of Philosophy and Human Sciences of UC Asunción signed an Inter-Institutional Cooperation Agreement with the National Antidrug Secretariat (SENAD) to undertake joint efforts, harmonize policies and implement programs in the field of Universal Preventive Education in the abuse of drugs and the Universal Treatment Curriculum for people affected by drug use. In June 2017, UC-Asunción and the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States established a framework for cooperation and technical assistance to aid the execution of activities related to human resources training within the framework of the dissemination of the Universal Treatment and Universal Prevention Curricula in the hemisphere.

The university will utilize both the Universal Treatment Curriculum (UTC) and Universal Prevention Curriculum (UPC) in the formulation of their programs. Beginning June 2019, undergraduate students from a variety of disciplines including psychology, nursing, and medicine will have the opportunity to participate in several Universal Treatment Curriculum courses and seminars. Also in June 2019, the university’s headquarters in Itapúa will use the UTC to pilot a Diploma of Counseling in Addiction Treatment program. A specialization in Addiction Counseling (Asunción headquarters) is currently under academic review and will begin accepting students in the 2020 academic year. 

For additional information, contact Lic. Diana S. Lesme Romero at dianalesme@gmail.com