Drug strategy

Adult workforce

This section covers the adult workforce, with sources of detailed information and advice for specific sectors of the workforce.

Guidance and good practice

Briefing papers and other resources have been produced by the Home Office for the substance misuse workforce, covering a range of issues. These are available to download from this site:

• Competence (new window)
• Funding (new window)
• Recruitment guidance for employers (new window)
• Recruitment guidance for employees (new window)
• Vetting (new window)
• Volatile Substance Abuse (new window)
• Resources and contacts (new window)

Health and treatment

Competence

• Information on recruitment and competence for the health and treatment sector is available from the NTA (new window) website.
• A Continuing Professional Development (CPD) pathway (new window) has been developed by the NTA in the East Midlands, which demonstrates routes for DAAT teams and substance misuse teams. While specific to the East Midlands region, this is a useful point of reference for all considering their CPD.

Criminal Justice

Recruitment

• Apprenticeship schemes are a good way of attracting high quality staff into the sector. This fact sheet (new window) describes the Advanced Apprenticeship in Community Justice.
• Guidance (new window) on the recruitment of criminal justice drugs workers was produced as a result of a DIP recruitment exercise.

Competence

• The fact sheet on the Continuing Development Award (new window) for Drugs Workers provides general information on the award. Guidance on how to implement a range of awards is also available. The final evaluation report (new window) on the pilot of the award offers valuable points of learning.

Contacts

• Contact details for regional and national managers are available on the Skills for Justice (new window) website.

Social work and social care

Key documents and resources

• A Commissioning E-Book (new window) has been launched by the Care Services Improvement Partnership. It contains articles and examples of good practice to help commissioners improve commissioning practice.
• A website (new window) has been developed for those working in the field of social work and social care, which provides information on substance misuse from a social model perspective.
• An electronic mailing list (new window) exists for social work academics, practitioners and students with an interest in learning more about substance misuse. It is designed to allow an exchange of information within the target audience. It is a professional e-mail list  and any posts to the list must therefore follow appropriate academic and professional codes of conduct.