Cognitive Behavioural Therapies (CBTs) are goal-focussed, flexible and time-limited therapy approaches which seek to guide people to become more aware of their thinking, feeling and behaviour patterns, and enhance skills to help support their goals for change. This 2-day intensive, skills-based workshop is targeted towards AOD and mental health workers who wish to build or hone their use CBT interventions as part of their provision of direct ongoing therapy interventions with people experiencing substance use issues.  As such this workshop is not suitable for workers engaged primarily in brief intervention/case management only type work, or whose focus is the supervision of court and/or other statutory orders.

By the end of this workshop learners will be able to:

• Understand the key concepts, structures and elements of the CBT approach for working with people impacted by substance use disorders.
• Conduct a functional analysis and develop a collaborative CBT-based formulation and formulation-linked plan.
• Offer a range of cognitive and behavioural techniques including conducting Socratic dialogues.
• Collaborate with clients and patients to develop purposeful learning experiences (i.e. out of session experiments).

The workshop incorporates facilitated presentations, simulated video demonstrations, problem-based group activities and a range of written and oral practical tasks. For post-training support, a Toolkit containing key resources for the practice of ‘CBT 4 AOD’ is made available to learners.