The LEAD project runs accredited and non-accredited training programmes designed to enable practitioners from across all sectors access awareness raising and knowledge and skills building training in order to make their practice more effective.

This training is open to practitioners and professionals from PSNI, PBNI, YJA, Health & Social Care, Education, Youth Work, Community and Voluntary sector

Courses on offer include

  • Staff training - policy and practice
  • Staff training for educationalists
  • Tier 1 & 2 staff working with young people
  • Basic Drugs Awareness for practitioners
  • Intermediate Drugs Awareness for practitioners
  • Working more effectively with parents
  • Parents courses facilitator training
  • Brief intervention/Motivational Interviewing training
  • Drugs & Alcohol & Conflict Management
  • Bespoke training designed for specific groups


See below for more details on some of the courses offered

Working More Effectively with Young Users

Aims    

  • To enable workers to more effectively and confidently support adolescent misusers, and develop core skills to enable and motivate change in relation to this group of young people.
  • To increase shared professional knowledge through networking, discussion and debate about current best practice.

Objectives

By the end of the programme participants will be able to

Define the key drugs of concern within their client group

Assess this in relation to statistical evidence of use in the NI context

Differentiate patters of use, and recognise what those patterns might look like in their client group, against the Stages of Use pathway model

Use the epidemiological triangle to begin to assess indicators of use/misuse

Use risk and protective factors (Hawkin’s et al) to identify indicators of misuse

Effectively assess their client group in relation to risk and need at a level appropriate to practitioner role and organisational remit

Be more aware of assessment procedures and practices across all sectors, to facilitate better exchange of information and more efficient case management for client

Define the terms relating to the prevention continuum and understand how and where their role fits in that continuumInformally (or formally) assess clients using the Stages of Change model (Di Clemente etc al) and use this as a basis for diagnosing and implementing effective ways of working with clients


Basic Drugs Awareness For Practitioners

AIM:

To ensure that participants have a sound information base around general drugs issues focusing on issues relevant to the group

NB: this course is designed as a basic outline and trainers will  tailor it to meet specific focus – professional e.g. nurses, teachers etc or for community groups e.g. parents, young people


Objectives:

for participants to be able to ....

1. define what a drug is
2. be able to state the 4 categories of drugs based on what those drugs do physically to the body
3. be able to accurately assign the main drugs of use/abuse to the correct category
4. state the 3 classes of drugs as defines under the MDA (1971/updated 1986)
5. classify at least 8 drugs of common use to the correct legal class
6. be aware of the penalties under law (crown court at least) for possession and supply of each class of drugs
7. have considered their own attitudes and values to drugs and considered why this is the case
8. considered drug use in relation to their own groups interest/focus (varies for each group)
9. name appropriate referral pathways and helping agencies


Intermediate Drugs Awareness For Practitioners
AIM:

To ensure that participants have a sound knowledge base around how drugs actually work within the body and the basis for tolerance and addiction (dependence).

Prerequisites:
Participants must have a good basic understanding of what drugs are, what categories exist and what drugs in these categories do to the body and the classes of drugs under the law - this will be built on in this course.
It will be assumed that participants on this course are aware of what drugs look like, who uses them, approximate cost & routes of administration.

Objectives:

for participants to be able to

1. define the main physiological responses of the body in relation to the 4 categories of drugs
2. describe basically how the nervous system functions and how drugs interact within the nervous system
3. be able to basically describe the 5 main ways in which drugs interact in the brain to cause physical and emotional change be able to accurately assign the main drugs of use/abuse to the correct category
4. state the names and functions of key neurotransmitters and be able to identify which drugs specifically interact with them
5. considered drug use in relation to the Stages of Use model
6. name appropriate referral pathways and helping agencies


For upcoming training dates and further information please click onto the Registering for Courses page here