TAP 21 - SAMHSA Store - Substance Abuse and Mental Health ...

Introduction
In 1998, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the
Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) published Addiction Counseling Competencies:
The Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes of Professional Practice (The Competencies) as Technical
Assistance Publication (TAP) 21. Developed by the National Curriculum Committee of the
Addiction Technology Transfer Center (ATTC) Network, TAP 21 identifies 123 competencies
that are essential to the effective practice of counseling for psychoactive substance use
disorders. TAP 21 also presents the knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) counselors need
to become fully proficient in each competency.
TAP 21 has been widely distributed by SAMHSA’s National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug
Information (NCADI) and the ATTC Network. It has become a benchmark by which curricula are
developed and educational programs and professional standards are measured for the field of
substance abuse treatment in the United States. In addition, it has been translated into
several languages.
Because the ATTC Network is committed to technology transfer, after the initial publication
of TAP 21, the National Curriculum Committee began exploring ways to enhance the document
for future printings. Successful technology transfer requires more than presenting good
information. It entails transmitting scientific knowledge in a way that makes it understandable,
feasible to implement in a real-world setting, and supportable at a systematic level—in other
words, getting the right information across in a way that makes it useable. The National
Curriculum Committee examined how best to package and present TAP 21 to help people
learn key elements and adopt new strategies. The result was a revision of TAP 21—a process
that was begun in 2000, was completed in 2005, and resulted in the current publication.
History of The Competencies
In 1993 CSAT created a multidisciplinary network of 11 ATTC Regional Centers geographically
dispersed across the United States and in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Since its
inception, the ATTC Network has collaborated with diverse international, national, State,
regional, and local partners from multiple disciplines to recruit qualified addiction treatment
practitioners and enhance academic preparation and professional development opportunities
in the substance abuse treatment field.
The National Curriculum Committee, composed of ATTC Directors, was established at the
Network’s inaugural meeting. The committee’s initial charge was to collect and evaluate
existing addiction educational and professional development curricula and establish future
priorities for ATTC curriculum development. This effort led to researching existing practice
and professional literature and defining an extensive list of addiction practice competencies
determined to be essential to effective counseling for substance use disorders. These initial
competencies would serve as benchmarks to guide future ATTC curriculum design, development,
and evaluation.
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