The program cultivates a critical and broad perspective in conceptualizing addiction and provides unique opportunities to examine and apply the knowledge gained through coursework. More specifically, it aims to:
- Provide the graduate students with a clinical understanding of the current drugs of abuse and patterns of abuse and the neurobiological and neuropharmacological basis of drug abuse and addiction,
- Provide the graduate students with the latest evidence-based knowledge regarding screening, assessment, and treatment of individuals and their families with substance use problems,
- Provide the graduate students with the current, trends, skills, and potential interventions in treatment, harm reduction, self-help approaches, and implementation of community-wide prevention programming,
- Through organized and supervised internship training (1200 h) of their choice within the Organization of Against Drugs (OKANA), graduate students develop the intervention competencies required in working with people who are confronting the challenges of drug abuse and addiction and their families, or in the development and application of prevention programming that are administered in school systems and communities.