Penn Tobacco Treatment Academy

Spring: Monday, May 13th through Thursday, May 16th, 2024

Fall: Monday, November 4th through Thursday, 7th, 2024

Credit Hours: Up to 28 CEU hours

Description: Integration of tobacco treatment skills into the daily routines of healthcare is a prerequisite for achieving the highest quality outcomes. Whether your concern is chronic illness management, behavioral health, or substance use recovery, this highly interactive training program is designed to help providers develop advanced skills in tobacco dependence treatment. Participants deepen their expertise through concentrated examination of accepted standards of care, analysis of current research findings, and hands-on application of specialized treatment principles. Successful participants receive a Certificate of Professional Development from the Perelman School of Medicine, and are eligible for certification as Tobacco Treatment Specialists through either the Association for Addiction Professionals (NAADAC) or the American Heart Association.

The course is organized into four uniquely themed, day-long seminars. The goal for each day is to lead the student to a progressively deeper understanding of the biological, social, and environmental factors that influence the tobacco epidemic. At the conclusion of this course, attendees will have developed a new perspective on the problem of dependence, and experience a fundamental change in their approach to treatment.

Learn More: Course Details and Registration Information

• The educational approach
• Available seminars and sample schedules
• ATTUD Accreditation

Tuition Cost: $1250

Contact: Sarah Evers-Casey at PennStop@uphs.upenn.edu for more information

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Dates: Ongoing

Description: Provider groups and organizations seeking to improve organizational efficiency when treating tobacco dependence will benefit from a team-based training that cuts across provider disciplines and patient care roles. This 1-day intensive introduction to the core principles of tobacco dependence treatment is designed to: 1) introduce care providers to the underlying mechanisms of nicotine addiction, 2) develop an integrated communication framework wherein diverse team members all contribute successfully to the therapeutic goal within the boundaries of their role, and 3) review current pharmacotherapeutic guidelines with particular attention to resolving important myths and misconceptions. This course is designed for groups of 10 or more participants, and currently offered throughout the year via video conference.

Cost: Tuition costs based on group size.

Contact: Sarah Evers-Casey at PennStop@uphs.upenn.edu for more information.

Date: September 6th, 2024

Description: Counseling about tobacco dependence in the face of a life-shattering event is a unique clinical challenge. Pain and stress may limit the patient's willingness to discuss cessation. The stigma of cancer, particularly in the context of smoking-related disease, may present significant emotional barriers to disclosure. In addition, mortality concerns may make engaging in behavior change seem futile.

This course integrates elements of trauma and grief counseling into an empathic model of tobacco dependence treatment that's specifically designed to meet the needs of this uniquely vulnerable population of people.

Course Goals:

• Empower clinicians to make a positive impact on cancer care outcomes through effective tobacco dependence treatment.
• Reduce the debilitating impact of stigma and shame that often accompanies continued smoking following a cancer diagnosis.
• Help clinicians develop — and advocate for — evidence-based systems of tobacco dependence care that align seamlessly with cancer care workflow.

Tuition Cost: $300

Contact: Sarah Evers-Casey at PennStop@uphs.upenn.edu for more information

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Dates: Friday, October 4th, 2024

Description: The cardinal sign of addiction is the reluctance to give up the substance that's addicting, even when facing difficult of life-altering consequences. While traditional methods of tobacco counseling focus on increasing the motivation to change, what happens when the patient is resistant to discussion - perhaps even to the point of defiance?

Advanced models of Tobacco Treatment Counseling focus on the communication skills of the counselor and less on the motivational level of the client. This course is designed to give experienced tobacco counselors a framework for successfully navigating encounters with resistant patients.

Whether it's the hospitalized patient facing mortality — or the healthy person who just loves smoking — this course will provide caregivers with strategies for diffusing the tension and motivating change.

Course Goals:

• Empower clinicians to motivate behavior change in the face of aggressive resistance.
• Reduce the frustrations that tend to poison therapeutic relationships and compromise outcomes.
• Translate strategies for handling high-stress situations into a model that is appropriate for the addiction setting.

Tuition Cost: $300

Contact: Sarah Evers-Casey at PennStop@uphs.upenn.edu for more information

Register

Date: Friday, November 15th, 2024

Description: It is well known that the prevalence of tobacco use disorder among people engaged in addiction treatment and recovery is high. Less well-known, but well demonstrated, is the positive effect that tobacco use treatment during recovery can have on addiction treatment outcomes and long-term sobriety.

This course will help clinicians develop a model for understanding the overlap in dependence syndromes, and tobacco's role in maintaining addiction while increasing the risk of accidental opioid overdose. In addition, learners will be introduced to effective ways to introduce tobacco abstinence goals into the client's overall recovery treatment plan without creating an adversarial, non-therapeutic, interaction.

After completing this course, learners will develop a new understanding of the issues facing addiction treatment clients who also smoke. Tobacco will no longer be viewed as a means of managing the stress during substance use recovery, but rather will be reframed as an important predisposition to relapse and ongoing drug use. Evidence-based methods for extending this new vision into the practice community despite a preference for maintaining the status quo will be explored.

Course Goals:

• Empower clinicians to make a positive impact on health equity through effective tobacco dependence treatment within the recovery context.
• Establish tobacco treatment as a means of promoting harm reduction and reducing long-term opioid relapse rates.
• Help clinicians strengthen their relationship with recovery clients by eschewing coercive tactics and adopting an advocacy mentality - ensuring evidence-based systems of tobacco dependence treatment align with the needs of the client community.

Tuition Cost: $300

Contact: Sarah Evers-Casey at PennStop@uphs.upenn.edu for more information

Register

Date: Friday, October 25, 2024

Description: Young people are increasingly attracted to the allure of vaping and nicotine pouches. Adolescents and young adults are beginning to recognize the powerful hold nicotine has exerted in their lives. Treating nicotine dependence in adolescents isn't a simple matter of highlighting the long-term health effects, nor is it the same phenomenon as treating adults. This 1-day pragmatic training course explores the prerequisite concepts necessary for increasing our effectiveness in dealing with this public health challenge. Topics include:

• Analysis of vape devices and nicotine pouches as tools for impactful nicotine delivery
• Adolescence as a critical period for nicotine's influence on brain development
• Framework for identifying vaping addiction
• Foundations of behavior change counseling in youth
• Review of existing evidence for pharmacotherapy
• Construction of adolescent-oriented policy approaches

Course Goals:

• Discuss the biological basis for addictive behaviors in adolescents and young adults
• Identify the unique role that current generation devices play in furthering this epidemic.
• Construct a counseling approach that focuses on the adolescents' needs, including the potential role for pharmacotherapeutic support.
• Develop an effective approach to the epidemic in collaboration with patients, parents, school officials, and advocacy groups.

Tuition Cost: $300

Contact: Sarah Evers-Casey at PennStop@uphs.upenn.edu for more information

Register

Dates: Available On Demand

Description: A series of 30-60 minute discussions focused on practical tips and techniques for implementing tobacco dependence treatment in a variety of healthcare settings. Appropriate for providers of all disciplines interfacing with the ill-effects of tobacco dependence. (View System Requirements)

• The Pharmacist's Role in Controlling the Tobacco Epidemic (60 minutes): Geared toward PA pharmacists interested in gaining membership to PA's pre-approved Tobacco Cessation Registry, but chock full of practical advice on "5-A" guideline implementation within busy practice settings.
• Treatment of Tobacco Dependence: A Critical Component of Behavioral Health (60 minutes): Review of the biologic genesis of tobacco dependence and basic pharmacology principles, relevant to the Behavioral Health setting and appropriate to practitioners of any discipline within the field.
• The Tobacco Epidemic Feeds The Opioid Epidemic! - The Biological Basis for Overlap in Dependence Syndromes (60 minutes): Why does addressing the opioid epidemic absolutely require a simultaneous approach to treating tobacco? Doing a better job treating the opioid epidemic implicitly means doing a better job with the tobacco epidemic at the same time. The biological basis for the overlap between these two important public health crises is explained.
• Developing More Effective Communication Strategies (35 minutes): Of course we would like to do a better job getting our message across to the people who could most benefit from our services. Sometimes, it can feel like it's hard to know just what to say. Maybe, it's not what we say, but how we say it that gets our message across.
• Informing Clients of Upcoming System Change (15 minutes): What's the best way to inform clients about upcoming plans for a smoke-free space? How do we do the best job we can ensuring both clients and staff have the best information possible? The nature of the problem is reviewed, and alternative non-confrontational strategies are explored.
• "Hey! That's Not Why I'm Here..." (12 minutes): Constraining a person's ability to smoke at-will is often experienced as a significant threat to well-being and can lead to anticipatory anxiety. How do we best manage clients' initial reaction when facing unplanned abstinence from smoking? This talk incorporates practical tips for implementation of biological concepts introduced within the Biological Overlap discussion above.
• "I've Got a RIGHT to Smoke!" (13 minutes): When it comes to tobacco, popular cultural assumptions have framed continued substance use as an expression of autonomous choice. This runs counter to the way we think about other substances of abuse, and the influence they can exert over autonomy. We discuss non-confrontational ways to discuss the concept of rights within the substance abuse recovery setting, focused on promoting an advocacy relationship, rather than an adversarial one.

Contact Us:

• Email: Sarah Evers-Casey at PennStop@uphs.upenn.edu