Question:

What are some of the implications of people with different levels of  training and education providing assessment related to vocational and  substance abuse counseling? 

Answer:

Vocational rehabilitation and substance abuse treatment staff is focused on the provision of holistic care, which encompasses alleviating the problem and helping the clients lead a meaningful life to improve their functioning. Accordingly, the counselors are educated and ”trained to provide a wide range of vocational, educational, supportive, and follow-up services’’ (Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, 2000). Organizations target talented individuals with diverse skill ranges to handle different organizational tasks. First, vocational and substance abuse counselors with varying training and educational levels come with diverse perspectives and models on how to solve the clients’ needs. Secondly, it supports the organization’s specialization for rehabilitation and treatment care hence optimizing the outcomes in a culturally-diverse world.

However, the challenge is that a lack of standardized levels of providers’ training and education would make it hard for the organization to also standardize its professional practices and requirements on employees. Some assessors with low training and educational levels may not meet the clients’ needs and organizational competency standardized making it harder for them to fit into the organization. Furthermore, lack of standardized training and education of the assessors may mean that some of them may misdiagnose the clients’ vocational and substance abuse challenges making it hard to implement the appropriate rehabilitation or treatment plans.

Question:

How might standards established like that of NBCC’s MAC help support standardization? How is this a protection of the public?