The University of Washington Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute (ADAI) was awarded a five-year, $3.87 million grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to support professional education and development of the addiction workforce in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.
Beginning in October 2017, ADAI will serve as the Northwest Addiction Technology Transfer Center (NWATTC), one of 10 regional centers in the national ATTC network established by SAMHSA in 1993.
“The healthcare system is in the midst of a transformation, presenting new challenges and opportunities. Our center will seek to support members of the workforce throughout the Northwest region as this transformative process continues to unfold,” said Bryan Hartzler, Ph.D., senior research scientist at ADAI and the grant’s principal investigator who will serve as NWATTC director.
The work of the NWATTC will encompass information dissemination, training and technical assistance, and systems consultation for regional treatment and healthcare organizations and their personnel—all intended to increase awareness and implementation of empirically-supported treatment and recovery practices.
The new center will draw on expertise in other UW departments as well as working with state agencies, provider organizations, and other stakeholders in each of the states in our region. NWATTC will also collaborate with the other ATTC regional centers and the national office to develop tools and promote strategies and practices to support continuous quality improvement of service delivery.
“This will be our mission,” said Dr. Hartzler, “whether in working alongside partners from Tribal communities to aid their adaptation of culturally-appropriate health services, guiding adoption of effective treatment and recovery practices in the many health settings that now serve persons with substance use and co-occurring disorders, or supporting national efforts to combat emerging health issues like the opioid crisis.”
Denna Vandersloot, M.Ed., a behavioral health clinician and trainer for over 20 years will serve as NWATTC co-director.
To join the NWATTC email list, please go to http://adai.uw.edu/nwattc/.