HRSA is a co-sponsor of a free workshop later this month to help health care providers learn how to screen patients for alcohol problems.

The workshop will be held Jan. 19 from 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. at Boston Medical Center’s Evans Biomedical Research Center, Conference Room 714.  The training is being offered to help providers prepare for National Alcohol Screening Day, which will be held April 11.  Clinicians, administrators and other staff of public health departments and hospitals, mental health and health clinic staff, and members of advocacy and prevention groups are encouraged to attend.

Since 1999, National Alcohol Screening Day has attracted nearly 100,000 people to community events, screening some 60,000 individuals and educating friends and family about signs, symptoms, available treatments, and where to seek counseling and help. Thousands of health care facilities, treatment centers, clinics and colleges have used ready-made, easy-to-use materials for conducting free, voluntary alcohol screenings with referrals for individual evaluation and treatment.

Workshop participants will participate in:

§         Hands-on training in alcohol education, screening and brief intervention including an educational presentation by a clinical alcohol expert;

§         Screening and referral role-playing using National Alcohol Screening Day screening materials; and

§         A session on “The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Of Successful Screening.”

National Alcohol Screening Day is a program of Screening for Mental Health, a nonprofit organization, in partnership with HRSA, the National Institutes of Health, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, all agencies of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and other organizations.

###