GREENFIELD — With the region still in the grip of an opioid addiction crisis, Greenfield Community College hopes to train the next generation of public health professionals who will work to beat it back.
The college launched an addiction studies certificate program this semester. The 29-credit, nine-class track will expose students to the intricacies of substance abuse and its effects on society, counseling and case management skills, and hands-on field experience, said Amy Ford, the professor in charge of the program.
GCC President Robert Pura said the certificate program rose out of ongoing efforts to address the national opioid and addiction epidemic locally by the regional Opioid Task Force.
“I think it certainly meets the needs of the community and our students, as far as the kind of work they’d like to do,” Pura said. “It became a particular passion of the faculty involved in its development. Given the Task Force’s support, it seemed like the right thing to do at this time.”
Pura said the program could act as a stepping-stone toward a bachelor’s degree in the human services, social work or medical fields, or a start to entry-level work in those professions.
Ford and another professor, Josh Becker of the psychology department, designed the certificate starting in 2014 because the school did not have any addiction-related course offerings for students at the time despite a deepening local opioid abuse and addiction problem.
“I came here (in 2014) with the desire and the intention to create one,” said Ford, whose career has spanned the addiction treatment and recovery spectrum, from working with teenage girls who had been removed from their homes and may have had mental health or substance abuse issues in New Jersey, to working as a consultant on addiction issues for the state Department of Children and Families. She entered higher education as an adjunct professor at Holyoke Community College, where she spent seven years.
The certificate’s course work ranges from an introduction to addiction studies class covering the history of treatment and recovery throughout the 20th century to classes on case management, ethics, motivation for helping others and theories of how to do it.
“The (state) Bureau of Substance Abuse Services is funding case management positions, and these are the skills needed to take those positions,” she said.
Students will also take a practicum class, where they will be placed in positions in the field. They will have to perform a total of 300 hours of work between the fall and spring semesters.
Upon completion, students will be prepared to sit for the Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor test.