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Appendix C – National Validation Study
counselors will be reimbursed for services provided. Addiction counselors who are currently
certified with only a high school diploma may have difficulty making the leap to a master’s
degree. Many addiction counselors may not be able to obtain the advanced education needed
fast enough to survive in the market.
In 1993 the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) created the Addiction Technology
Transfer Center (ATTC) Program to foster improvements in the preparation of addiction
treatment professionals (Rohrer et al. 1996). As part of the ATTC Program, a National
Curriculum Committee (the Committee) was established to evaluate existing curricula and to
set priorities for current academic programs. At its first meeting, the Committee realized that
the field had not defined the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that should be shared by all
addiction counselors. Identifying and delineating these competencies became the Committee’s
first task to professionalize the field.
Representing a range of specialties within the substance abuse treatment field, members of the
Committee provided practice-related information through a brainstorming process. Once the
general responsibilities of the field were identified, the Committee developed task statements
for each. Committee members ordered the responsibilities and task statements in a learning
sequence, based on the order in which responsibilities are generally performed on the job.
The process of identifying responsibilities was considered complete when the Committee
reached consensus regarding the accuracy and sequence of the task statements produced.
The Committee identified four transdisciplinary foundations and eight practice dimensions
encompassing 121 competencies. These results are consistent with the DACUM (Develop a
Curriculum) process (Norton 1985), which typically results in 8 to 12 responsibilities and 50
to 200 tasks. The four transdisciplinary foundation categories were understanding addiction,
treatment knowledge, application to practice, and professional readiness. The eight practice
dimension categories were clinical evaluation; treatment planning; referral; case management;
counseling; client, family, and community education; documentation; and professional and
ethical responsibilities. Each category had between 3 and 20 competencies in it. This effort
resulted in the publication of Addiction Counselor Competencies (Addiction Technology
Transfer Centers 1995).
Although the Committee incorporated existing literature related to the work of addiction
counselors, particularly the practice analysis conducted by Birch and Davis Corporation (1986)
and the International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium Role Delineation Study
(International Certification and Reciprocity Commission/Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse 1991)
when developing the competencies that made up Addiction Counselor Competencies, it also
relied on its own contributions. The Committee felt that job-related data provided a snapshot of
what is, not what could be. And in the addiction counseling field, what is has been questioned.
Because of its peer counselor and personal experience history, treatment provided by some
addiction counselors has been described as narrow and inflexible, impeding the adoption of
new treatment methods that may better meet the needs of clients. Moreover, lacking traditional
academic preparation, some counselors have difficulty understanding literature and
incorporating new research results. Consequently, the Committee’s work emphasized moving
the field forward. To gauge the potential value of the competencies, the Committee conducted
a study to determine which of 121 competencies were perceived as necessary for practice by
addiction counselors in the field.
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