Massachusetts Probation Service’s Substance Abuse Specialist Training Program
Prepares Probation Officers to Address Addiction

Nearly 200 Probation Officers have completed the Office of the Commissioner of Probation’s Substance Abuse Specialist Training Program which was created in 2002 to give officers added knowledge about how to handle addiction suffered by the offenders they supervise.

Each person who completes the five-day training program, a field work requirement, is certified as a Substance Abuse Specialist.

Regional Supervisor Rick O’Neil and Chief Probation Officer Dan Ryan developed the curriculum for the training. It was the brainchild of Ryan, an authority on substance abuse and addiction. The training, he said, is based on two key criteria: the intensity and duration of the use of drugs and alcohol among offenders and the lack of a family connection or support network.

“Probation Officers must understand the essence of substance abuse to be able to help the people they supervise. They must also know how to network and find the necessary resources to help people with the disease of addiction,” Ryan said.

The intensive training program teaches Probation Officers how to apply the Supreme Judicial Court’s Standards on Substance Abuse to a case and how to make verbal and written substance abuse assessments for the court. Participants explore the links between brain disease and denial. They also learn about relapse and recovery as well as change issues and how to properly supervise a substance abuse case as well as understand the relationship between public safety and recovery issues.

“Eighty-three percent of Risk/Need probation cases have substance abuse as a common problem. In Probation, we have to deal with substance abuse issues all the time,” Ryan said. “Substance abuse is not a moral issue, it is a “chronic relapsing brain disease” that goes unrecognized by many.”