Cultivating Leaders in the Addiction Behavioral Health Workforce: New England Addiction Technology Transfer Center’s Leadership Development Program

Abstract

Background:

The leadership development program (LDP) of the New England Addiction Technology Transfer Center is a novel free professional development training program for addiction behavioral health service providers. The LDP aims to create, develop, and enhance the leadership skills of the addiction behavioral health workforce through multi-component training. The content of the training is scaffolded and covers an array of topics (eg, organizational culture, group development). Instructional content is delivered both virtually and face-to-face and employs various instructional modalities including didactics, behavioral rehearsals, and case studies.

Methods:

The current article discusses the development of the LDP, the iterative adaptation of the LDP, and feedback from 69 participants across 5 cohorts. Participants from the 5 cohorts were mostly Non-Hispanic White (73%), identified as female (68%), and had fewer than 5 years supervisory experience (71%). Participants were sent a 2-part post-survey querying for their satisfaction and perceived effectiveness of the program assessed through quantitative and qualitative items.

Results:

Quantitative items were uniformly answered in the above average to excellent range to questions about the programming, instructors, and usefulness. Similarly, qualitative findings suggested that participants had an overwhelmingly positive experience with the LDP and that they were able to enhance their leadership capabilities.

Conclusion:

Our results provide support for the feasibility and utility of the LDP for addiction behavioral health providers. Additionally, the article provides guidance for the development of leadership training programs to support the leadership development of addiction workforce and the field broadly.