Assessment and Treatment Planning in Addictions

Course Description

Assessment and Treatment Planning in Addictions introduces the fundamental concepts of substance dependence counseling, covering multiple therapeutic frameworks including relapse prevention, cognitive-behavioural approaches, group dynamics theory, and family systems perspectives — organized around the two professional tasks the title names: determining what is going on, and deciding what to do about it.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, HUS is the Human Services prefix. Daytona State published this at 3 credits, offered fall and spring; Palm Beach State carries it at 3 credits within an Addiction Studies college credit certificate that articulates into an A.S. in Human Services. That gives approximately 45 contact hours, consistent with the entire published HUS family in this repository.

Assessment and treatment planning is where addiction counseling becomes a profession rather than a set of good intentions. A structured assessment determines severity, level of care, co-occurring conditions, and readiness; a treatment plan converts that into measurable goals someone can be held to. Everything downstream — the counseling, the group work, the documentation, and the funding — rests on those two documents.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe substance use disorders as defined in current diagnostic criteria, including severity specifiers.
• Describe major theoretical models of addiction and their treatment implications.
• Describe the neurobiology of addiction at an introductory level and its relevance to practice.
• Conduct a screening using validated instruments and interpret the result appropriately.
• Conduct a biopsychosocial assessment interview covering substance use history and life domains.
• Assess for co-occurring mental health conditions and describe integrated treatment.
• Assess risk, including suicide risk, withdrawal risk, and safety concerns.
• Apply placement criteria to determine an appropriate level of care.
• Assess stage of change and readiness, and match intervention accordingly.
• Apply motivational interviewing principles in an assessment interview.
• Identify client strengths, supports, and recovery capital alongside problems.
• Write an individualized treatment plan with measurable, achievable, time-bound objectives.
• Link assessment findings to treatment plan problems and objectives explicitly.
• Develop treatment plans collaboratively with the client rather than for them.
• Describe relapse prevention planning and identify triggers and coping strategies.
• Describe cognitive-behavioural approaches applied to substance use.
• Describe family systems perspectives and involve family appropriately.
• Describe medication-assisted treatment and its evidence base.
• Review and revise treatment plans in response to progress or its absence.
• Document assessment and planning to professional and regulatory standards.
• Apply confidentiality requirements specific to substance use records.
• Apply ethical standards, including scope of practice and cultural responsiveness.

Optional Outcomes

• Describe screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT).
• Describe drug testing and its appropriate clinical use and limits.
• Describe trauma-informed assessment practice.
• Describe assessment considerations for adolescents and for older adults.
• Describe criminal justice involvement and mandated treatment.
• Describe recovery-oriented systems of care and continuing care planning.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Diagnostic criteria and severity
• Theoretical models of addiction
• Neurobiology and its practice implications
• Screening instruments
• Biopsychosocial assessment
• Co-occurring disorders
• Risk assessment: suicide, withdrawal, safety
• Placement criteria and level of care
• Stages of change and readiness
• Motivational interviewing in assessment
• Strengths and recovery capital
• Writing measurable treatment objectives
• Linking assessment to plan
• Collaborative planning
• Relapse prevention planning
• Cognitive-behavioural approaches
• Family systems perspectives
• Medication-assisted treatment
• Plan review and revision
• Documentation standards
• 42 CFR Part 2 confidentiality
• Ethics, scope, and cultural responsiveness

Optional Topics

• SBIRT
• Drug testing: use and limits
• Trauma-informed assessment
• Adolescent and older adult considerations
• Mandated and justice-involved treatment
• Recovery-oriented systems and continuing care

Resources & Tools

• Substance Abuse Counseling: Theory and Practice (Stevens & Smith) and Addiction Treatment: A Strengths Perspective (van Wormer & Davis) — the standard texts.
• Motivational Interviewing (Miller & Rollnick) — the primary source, and worth reading rather than reading about.
• SAMHSA (samhsa.gov) — free and extensive: the TIP series (Treatment Improvement Protocols) covers assessment, co-occurring disorders, MAT, and trauma-informed care in depth and costs nothing.
• ASAM Criteria — the standard placement framework in the field; the full text is a purchase, but ASAM publishes free summaries of the dimensions and levels of care.
• NIDA (nida.nih.gov) — free: Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment, the research summaries, and free screening tools.
• Florida Certification Board (flcertificationboard.org) — free: credential requirements, competency domains, and examination content outlines. Read the domain list; it is effectively a syllabus for your career.
• 42 CFR Part 2 and SAMHSA's confidentiality guidance — free, and the operative law.
• Florida DCF, Substance Abuse and Mental Health — free: Florida's provider licensure requirements and the Marchman Act (Chapter 397, F.S.).
• Validated screening instruments in the public domain — AUDIT, DAST, CAGE, CRAFFT for adolescents — all free to use.

Career Pathways

• Addiction counselor — outpatient, intensive outpatient, residential, and detoxification settings; the direct destination once certified.
• Behavioral health technician — the standard entry role, available at the associate level and where supervised hours accumulate.
• Case manager in substance use treatment.
• Intake and assessment specialist — a role this course maps onto directly.
• Recovery support specialist or peer specialist — Florida certifies peer specialists, and lived experience is a qualification rather than a disqualification.
• Criminal justice settings — drug courts, probation, jail-based treatment, and reentry programmes.
• Prevention specialist — a separate Florida credential with school and community roles.
• Employee assistance programmes.
• Graduate study — an MSW or a master's in clinical mental health counseling leads to Florida licensure under Chapter 491 and substantially higher earning.
• SOC code 21-1011 Substance Abuse, Behavioral Disorder, and Mental Health Counselors — consistently a high-growth occupation, though entry-level pay in this field is genuinely low and should be understood in advance.

Special Information

⚠ Assessment is not diagnosis — know exactly what your credential permits

The scope-of-practice boundary that matters most in this course, because the two words are used loosely in conversation and precisely in law.

Conducting a structured assessment and gathering clinical information is within the scope of a certified addiction professional. Rendering a formal mental health diagnosis is generally the practice of a licensed clinician — a physician, psychologist, licensed mental health counselor, clinical social worker, or marriage and family therapist — under Florida's licensing statutes.

What that means day to day:

• Gather and document findings accurately, describe symptoms and history, apply screening instruments, and identify what warrants clinical attention. That is your work and it is substantial.
• Refer for diagnosis and for medical evaluation. Withdrawal from alcohol and benzodiazepines can be medically dangerous, and a person who needs medical detoxification needs a physician, not a counselor.
• Do not diagnose co-occurring mental illness — screen for it, document what you observe, and refer.
• Work under supervision as required by your credential and your agency, and use it. Supervision exists for exactly the situations that are ambiguous.
• Know your agency's policies, which are frequently narrower than what your credential technically permits.

The professional framing worth adopting: the boundary protects clients, and it protects you. Operating outside it is a certification matter and a liability matter, and "I was trying to help" is not a defence.

⚠ Write treatment plans that could be measured by someone else

The concrete technical skill this course teaches, and the one most directly employable.

A treatment plan is a working document, not a formality — it directs the counseling, it is reviewed by supervisors and auditors, and it determines what a funder will pay for. Most weak plans fail the same way: the objectives are not measurable.

• "Client will work on sobriety" is not an objective. "Client will attend three recovery support meetings weekly and report attendance at each session for the next 30 days" is.
• Every objective needs a behaviour, a frequency or quantity, and a timeframe — so that anyone reading the chart can tell whether it happened.
• Link every problem to the assessment. A problem statement that does not trace back to something documented in the assessment will not survive an audit and, more importantly, may not be a real problem.
• The plan must be the client's. A plan written for a client rather than with them produces compliance at best and disengagement usually. Ask what they want to change, and build from there.
• Include strengths and supports, not only deficits. Recovery capital — housing, employment, relationships, skills — predicts outcomes, and a plan that only lists problems misses the resources.
• Review and revise on schedule. A plan that has not changed in six months is either finished or being ignored.
• Documentation standards are regulatory. Licensed Florida providers are audited, and reimbursement depends on documentation supporting the service billed.

⚠ Medication-assisted treatment works, and the stigma against it costs lives

The evidence-versus-culture conflict most likely to arise in a student's first job, and it should be addressed directly.

Medications for opioid use disorder — methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone — have strong evidence of reducing mortality, improving treatment retention, and reducing illicit use. This is among the better-established findings in the field, and it is endorsed by SAMHSA, NIDA, and the major professional bodies.

Substantial stigma against these medications persists, including inside treatment settings and inside some recovery communities, expressed as the claim that a person on medication is "not really sober." Students should know:

• The position is not supported by the evidence, and it has been associated with people leaving effective treatment and dying.
• Some programmes and some sober-living residences exclude people on MAT, which is a real barrier a case manager will have to navigate.
• Your personal recovery experience is not clinical evidence. A counselor whose own recovery was abstinence-based may hold strong views; imposing them on clients is an ethical problem.
• Naloxone saves lives and is available in Florida without an individual prescription under a standing order. Knowing how to obtain and use it is a basic competency for anyone in this field.
• Harm reduction and abstinence-based approaches are not mutually exclusive — a dead client cannot recover, and keeping someone alive and engaged is a legitimate clinical objective.

Rule 11 applies — MAT regulation, prescribing requirements, and Florida's standing orders have changed substantially in recent years. Verify current provisions.

⚠ Substance use records carry confidentiality protection beyond HIPAA

The legal point that most distinguishes addiction work from other human services practice, and violating it is a federal matter.

Federal regulations at 42 CFR Part 2 protect the confidentiality of substance use disorder patient records held by federally assisted programmes, and they have historically been stricter than HIPAA, particularly on redisclosure. The practical rules:

• The fact that someone is a patient is itself protected. You may not confirm to a caller that a person is in the programme — not to an employer, not to a family member, not to a friend.
• Consent must be specific. A general release is insufficient; the consent identifies who may receive what information, for what purpose, and for how long.
• Redisclosure is restricted. A recipient of protected information generally may not pass it on, and the notice accompanying the disclosure says so.
• The exceptions are narrow — medical emergencies, certain court orders, and defined circumstances — and they are narrower than the exceptions people assume.
• Recent rulemaking has aligned Part 2 more closely with HIPAA in some respects, which is precisely why you should verify current requirements rather than relying on a textbook or a colleague's memory.

Two everyday consequences worth internalising: do not acknowledge clients in public unless they acknowledge you first — this is a confidentiality practice, not coldness — and be careful with mandatory reporting interactions, since child abuse reporting obligations coexist with Part 2 and the interaction is genuinely complex. When in doubt, consult a supervisor before disclosing, not after.

⚠ The Florida CAP credential is what this coursework is for — plan the whole path

The career information addiction-studies students most need, and it is not obvious from a course catalog.

Florida certifies addiction professionals through the Florida Certification Board, not through a licensing board in the way that counselors and social workers are licensed. The relevant credentials form a ladder, commonly including the Certified Addiction Professional (CAP) and lower-tier credentials such as the Certified Behavioral Health Technician (CBHT) and the Certified Addiction Counselor tiers.

What a student should understand early:

• Certification combines education, supervised work experience, an examination, and a code of ethics. Coursework alone does not certify you, and the supervised hours are usually the long pole.
• Specific course content maps to the certification domains — screening and assessment, treatment planning, counseling, case management, ethics, and documentation are named competency areas, which is exactly why the human services curriculum is shaped the way it is.
• Entry-level work is available before certification. Technician-level roles in residential and outpatient treatment hire with an associate degree or less, and they are where the supervised hours accumulate.
• Addiction certification is separate from clinical licensure. Licensed mental health counselors, clinical social workers, and marriage and family therapists are licensed by the Florida Department of Health under Chapter 491 and follow an entirely different path requiring a master's degree.
• Reciprocity exists but is not automatic — the Florida Certification Board participates in national reciprocity arrangements, which matters if you may move.

Rule 11 applies. Certification requirements, credential names, and the required hours change. Verify directly with the Florida Certification Board before planning around any specific figure.

⚠ Only about three Florida institutions carry this number — hedge accordingly

This course appears at roughly three institutions statewide. Content, credit value, and emphasis vary more than they would for a widely taught course. Read your own institution's catalog description and syllabus rather than assuming this guide describes your section exactly, and have any transfer evaluated in writing.

Course format and transfer

HUS1421 is a lecture course, 3 credits and approximately 45 contact hours, matching every published HUS course in this repository. Expect applied assignments — conducting a mock assessment, writing a treatment plan against a case vignette, and role-played interviewing — because those are the competencies the credential examines. Practise the interviewing; it feels artificial in a classroom and it is the skill the job runs on.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement.

Note that this course does not appear in Daytona State's current catalog and was verified from its 2019–2020 edition alongside Palm Beach State's current Addiction Studies certificate, so availability varies by institution and by year. Human services A.S. degrees are applied and do not carry the A.A.'s junior-status guarantee. The more important planning point is the credentialing path described above: confirm with the Florida Certification Board how your coursework counts before assuming it does.