Substance misuse services: delivery of psychological interventions

2. Who is the guide for?

The guide has been prepared largely to support managers and commissioners in developing psychological intervention provision in specialist substance misuse services. It is hoped that it will also be useful to managers and commissioners of other services that work with people for whom substance misuse is a significant issue (such as mental health and prison services).

The guide:

• outlines the competencies required to deliver effective psychological interventions for service users and families
• considers the evidence base for the delivery of interventions, as well as integrating new interventions for which evidence may still be developing
• considers how best to implement training on psychological interventions into practice, and how to set up robust systems of clinical governance and practice development.

Commissioners can use the guide to:

• inform governance of services delivering psychological interventions across substance misuse services
• assess services delivering psychological interventions for substance misuse (an example audit proforma is given in Appendix 1).

Managers can use it to:

• support professional development
• inform development opportunities, and develop job descriptions incorporating psychological interventions competencies
• influence workforce development requirements
• support service redesign, ensuring those with competencies to deliver psychological interventions are integrated within teams
• ensure compliance with quality assurance and clinical governance expectations.

Training providers and coaches can use it to:

• prioritise workforce development for the substance misuse service workforce
• analyse their activities to enhance the impact of training activities and implementation in practice
• design and develop programmes of training and coaching that provide a range of learning opportunities aimed at supporting application to practice
• design and deliver training and coaching that is guided by the competencies required for each tier of the matched-care model described
• align programmes of training to systems of quality assurance and governance.

Practitioners can use the guide to:

• benchmark their own practice
• guide professional development
• provide evidence of development and reflection on practice in annual appraisals and reviews.