Adolescent SBIRT

Helping social workers and nurses prevent adolescent substance use

Adolescent SBIRT Curriculum Testimonials

 

What Students Say...

 
"I really enjoyed being able to learn the material in…different environments. Each step reinforced the previous and seemed to really maximize memory and content retention. I’ll remember the SBIRT course for a long time."

- Advanced Practice Nursing Student, University of Michigan School of Nursing
 
"I can apply this learning to all aspects of my work when working with a client. Understanding the basics will help me grow as a social worker. It is important to know confidentiality, screening, brief intervention example phrases, referral to treatment, summary of content, follow-up and support. These are the major things I learned while taking my stimulation. I believe practicing this stimulation periodically would really help me know how to work with different groups."

- Senior Bachelor of Social Work Major, Tuskegee University

"I hope all is well with you and I hope you are having a lovely summer. I had to send this email because I was too excited to wait until school started. I'm going to be interning with Dimondale Adolescent Care Facility for the summer helping out at a shelter for abused and homeless girls. During this process I had to take a test which reminded of the online simulation that you assigned to us. I passed with flying colors! I just wanted to say thank you for everything and all of your amazing classes."


- Student, Tuskegee University

 
"I honestly liked everything about it.  At first, it all seemed like it was going to be common sense knowledge so it seemed tedious to have to go through all of the powerpoints without being able to just skip through them and move on to the case studies. However, the powerpoints had so much information in them that you absolutely needed to listen to in order to be able to do well on the actual simulation. I thought this assignment was extremely rewarding and truly gave us all an insight on what kind of work we may all get into in our futures (depending on what everybody wants to do with their lives).  I really enjoyed being able to go back over and over again to see how your score changed, for the better or worse, based on the options you chose to go with during both the practice and final simulations. Truly such a great experience!  I am so happy I decided to go with SBIRT and not just a presentation on a specific drug."

- Student, Community College of Rhode Island
"I learned some key interviewing skills that enable me to speak to adolescents that are combating addiction. I was taught how to build rapport, address their addiction with them, not make them feel like I'm imposing, and to steer them in a better direction. It was very interesting to see how simply changing the approach can totally allow the adolescent to be more open. What played such a huge role in this is how things are worded. It’s all about carefully wording the question in a way that allows them to speak about the thoughts they have about their own situation. It is a very tricky skill but very necessary in this field. The art of wording questions, affirmations, reflections and summaries while speaking to the individual was the main skill that stood out to me in this assignment."

- Student, Community College of Rhode Island

"This form of learning was certainly different from what I am used to as far as high school/college learning and teaching goes. The 3D simulation was very interesting and actually made the 'SBIRT user' feel like he/she was actually in a professional setting dealing with a real live client. I didn't expect the simulation to actually have a moving simulation with 3D graphics, rather, I expected it to be 2D with chat bubbles above the heads talking. Also, the thoroughness of every detailed piece of information in this simulation was impressive to say the least."


- Student, Community College of Rhode Island

 

What Faculty Say...

 
"Students (these are Psychiatric / Mental Health Nurse Practitioner students) asked at the beginning of the semester in the Child/ Adolescent Mental Health Nursing course, expressed concern that they were comfortable talking with adults, but were anxious about interviewing adolescents.  I was able to go ahead and introduce SBIRT in the course early and give them access to the Kognito simulations. Their response was very positive.  Several are RNs in the Emergency Department and they wrote that the simulation was very realistic.  They also appreciated getting to practice interviewing a teen – with the very realistic simulations. There were no negative comments. This has been a very successful teaching strategy for providing opportunity to practice therapeutic communication with adolescents."

- Instructor, University of Arizona
 

"Students liked the simulation and asked if they could revisit it to obtain more practice. Students stated it helped them decide which questions were effective and which were ineffective and helped them see how to use these skills to build rapport and support clients autonomy."


- Faculty, University of Nevada at Las Vegas

 
"The Instructor’s Guide and PowerPoints are very thorough.  I like that the Instructor’s Guide has a lot of tools incorporated in it.

- Instructor, Saint Louis University
 

"Faculty have been very impressed with the students’ immediate use of SBIRT training. One student started using the techniques in her work and stated she was promoted due to her increased skills"


- Instructor, Boise State

 
"I had the students in this summer PMHNP group fill out open ended evaluations of the modules of the larger course. The majority of the respondents chose this substance use module and Kognito simulation as their favorite module in terms of learning specific skills they will most likely need for their future role as a PMHNP.  They wrote that they appreciated getting to practice asking the difficult Substance use questions with the virtual adolescents in the safe simulation experience. They really appreciated using the MI - focused interview skills."

- Instructor, Ohio State University
 

What Practitioners Say...

 
"I participated in the Kognito simulation training for SBIRT. I thought that the simulation was quite insightful and easy to navigate. The scenarios were realistic in content and I felt comfortable with the demonstration enough to see that I could incorporate this type of screening into my work environment. Working in the emergency department I see a lot of patients who use alcohol and other drugs on a regular basis. Many of these patients are brought in by the local police department or by ambulance after using their substance of choice and for making further poor decisions while intoxicated. Everyone who drinks is not an alcoholic and everyone who has used drugs is not a drug addict, but with screening such as SBIRT at my disposal I have a better chance of identifying those patients with risky alcohol and drug use at an earlier point in the process.  If we can help at risk patients before their behaviors become dependent in nature and require more extensive treatment we can also cut down the costs of their overall healthcare related to substance use."

- Emergency Dept. Practitioner, Appalachian State University