The article, “Recruiting and Retaining a Diverse and Skilled Addiction Treatment Workforce,” has been published in SAj.
The authors state that national drug overdose deaths have been rising for decades, with particularly significant increases in recent years among populations of color. There is an urgent need for timely, accessible substance use disorder treatment, but workforce shortages across roles and settings impede the ability of the treatment system to meet the rising and evolving demand. In this commentary, the authors discuss reasons for workforce shortages across roles, and offer recommendations for 8 areas of investment to grow and sustain a substance use and addiction care workforce prepared to address the overdose crisis in a racially equitable manner.
In the AUTHORS’ OWN WORDS, they relate the importance of their work:
“As the overdose crisis has become more concentrated in historically marginalized and underserved populations, there is a growing need for staff who can bridge gaps, build trusting relationships, and make connections to care. Skills in trauma-informed and culturally responsive approaches are critical across roles, and research has also emphasized that people with SUD are most likely to trust and engage with staff who share their racial and cultural identities and/or elements of their lived experiences, including experiences with drug use, recovery, incarceration, and homelessness. However, people of color remain underrepresented in many healthcare occupations and many SUD treatment facilities do not employ peer support specialist staff.”
“To grow and sustain a diverse and skilled substance use and addiction workforce, systems must invest in comprehensive solutions that value and prioritize this field. This includes supporting the frontline staff who are critical points of engagement, while simultaneously developing a robust cadre of culturally responsive treatment providers to ensure that outreach and engagement efforts result in smooth connections to care rather than being bottlenecked by workforce shortages. Many of these changes will require financial resources, which organizations may not currently have, particularly community-based agencies. However, as states prepare to receive billions of dollars in opioid settlement funds, now is the time to consider bold investments.”