From Experience to Expertise: NY Wants to Invest in Your Addiction Counseling Career

Episode Transcript

Isabel Byon (00:00):
The New York State Office of Addiction Services and
Supports or OASAS, providesthis podcast as a public service
.
Opinions expressed do notnecessarily reflect those of the
agency or state.

This is Addiction (00:12):
The Next Step.

Jerry Gretzinger (00:19):
Welcome to another edition of Addiction:
The Next Step, the podcastbrought to you by the New York
State Offices of AddictionServices and Supports.
I'm Jerry Gretzinger, your host, and today we are talking more
about supporting the workforce.
Now we've had several episodeswhere we've talked about
scholarships that are availableso that people can pursue their
education to be able to provideservices and supports, which we

(00:40):
know are so critically necessary.
There's a workforce crisis.
There's not enough people.
We want to change that.
One of the people that'shelping us to do that is Kalisha
Smith.
She joins us today.
Thanks for sitting down with us, Kalisha.

Kalisha Smith (00:50):
Of course, of course.

Jerry Gretzinger (00:51):
So I want you to first tell us who do you work
with.
What do you guys do?

Kalisha Smith (00:55):
Yeah, so I am Kalisha Smith.
I work with the OutreachTraining Institute as part of
the organization outreach.
We have programming in Queensand Long Island, all through
Suffolk County, Nassau Countyand all through the Island.
So we provide residentialtreatment services.
We provide outpatient mentalhealth and substance use
services.
In our brand new CCBHC clinicout in Richmond Hill we have

(01:18):
youth residential services,opioid treatment programming and
outpatient substance useprogramming.

Jerry Gretzinger (01:25):
A lot of good services being offered in
programming.

Kalisha Smith (01:27):
Yes, yeah.

Jerry Gretzinger (01:28):
So I know today we're here to talk about
some unique scholarshipopportunities, but before we do
that, you know, sometimes it'sinteresting to find out what
drove people to get into thisarea of work right.
I mean, everybody says you haveto bring a passion, and
sometimes that passion is fromyou know their experiences with
substance use, either on theirown or loved ones, and I know

(01:48):
some of your information and Ijust wanted to see if you would
share kind of what made you saythis is the area of work I want
to be doing.

Kalisha Smith (01:55):
Yeah, you know it was a little bit of a while
trying to figure out whatexactly I wanted to do with my
career, and I like to say thatthis field chose me.
I've always been a helper sinceI was younger and kind of
navigated my life with familymembers who were plagued with
addiction or not even knowingwhat an addiction actually was,

(02:17):
until I started to get older,and so I grew up with an
individual in my household whoused substances and it never
showed right.
This person was near and dearto me and they still.
They were my parent.
They still showed all the signsof a parent, a great parent.

(02:39):
But on the other side there wassubstance use happening that we
weren't necessarily exposed toor aware of.
But now that I'm older andlooking back, you see the signs
and you're able to connect thedots.
And when I did get older, therewas transparency in that in my
household to help us understandlike these are the things that

(03:01):
are happening.
And when my parents separated,my mom was also very transparent
about you know what was goingon in the household, and I think
that kind of made me want tohave more of an impact so that I
can help to not only bringawareness, but also kind of like
work in a space where wede-stigmatize individuals who

(03:22):
have substance use disorders,who have a disease right and who
can't necessarily alwayscontrol some of the things that
they are navigating in life.
And I like to look at it as youknow, in life there's always
good and bad, and so individualsare always going to have
struggles, and sometimes thatstruggle is substance use.
And so for me, I like that I'mon the other side of that being

(03:46):
able to empower individuals toget into our field, being able
to teach individuals how to lookat humans as a whole person and
not just as a person with adisease or as a person with a
substance use disorder, butbeing able to de-stigmatize that
for everybody.

Jerry Gretzinger (04:02):
Yeah, yeah, and so I think it's interesting.
You talked about how you know.
You lived a number of yearswith this person in your home
who is a substance user.
I didn't, didn't see the signs.
Yeah, and I know.
One of the things that you know, we say we can, we can provide
to people is information If theyare loved ones of someone that
they're thinking may be usingsubstances maybe they're not,

(04:24):
but to help them understand whatthose signs are.

Kalisha Smith (04:27):
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely, and that's why it'simportant for me, in the role
that I'm in as a traininginstitute director, to be able
to help people get on board withthat and also just providing
general education.
I know OASAS does a great jobat this being able to talk about
what things might look likeright, give warning signs and
just give information to themasses to kind of de-stigmatize

(04:49):
what we have going on.

Jerry Gretzinger (04:50):
Right, the better we can help people to
understand, the less stigma wehope will be in the community.
Right, absolutely so.
I think it's also interestingtoo, as we start moving towards
the part of the conversationabout scholarships.
You know we talk about, youknow who are the people who work
in the addiction field, right,and I know a lot of times we
talk about people having livedexperience, and that can be
someone who may have usedsubstances and went through

(05:12):
treatment, is in recovery andnow wants to be that person to
help others, but at the sametime, someone like yourself who
lived with someone who is usingsubstances and now feels that
passion to make a difference,right, so I mean the people who
might be considering this lineof work can really run a broad
range.

Kalisha Smith (05:29):
Yeah, oh, absolutely.
I mean, some of our students dohave lived experience.
They're motivated by being inrecovery and wanting to help in
the way that they received care.
We have a lot of individualswho are already in the field and
you won't believe how manypeople that are mental health
counselors, social workers,marriage and family therapists

(05:49):
and don't necessarily know howto treat substance use disorders
right, and so we love beingable to take individuals in our
program and help them learn andunderstand.
How do you provide thistreatment?
Because the world is movingtowards integrated care.
There's no such thing asproviding a service without
somebody coming in and mighthaving some touch of substance
use and being able to discern.

(06:11):
Is this a problem or is thisjust normal situations that
we're going through?
Right?

Jerry Gretzinger (06:17):
So then we get to the part now where someone
okay, they may be listeningsaying, okay, well, let's hear
that scholarship information,because we've said this a few
different times in otherepisodes too one of the top
barriers someone may haveencountered wanting to do this
is the cost associated with it.

Kalisha Smith (06:34):
Absolutely.
We get applications almostevery day at Outreach.
We are one of the top trainingproviders in New York State and
that is because we provide ourprogram virtually.
Now it's live virtual, and sowhat that means is that we have
a platform where individualswill come on online and they'll
take our program.
We have four different tracks.

(06:54):
We have a morning track andthree evening tracks, so we make
it accessible and with that,what happens is that individuals
apply but they may not be ableto afford our program.
We offer need-based tuitionassistance, but we also offer
scholarships.
Right now we have a scholarshipthat's covering the full cost
of tuition for individuals thatlive in Suffolk County, and

(07:15):
that's our Suffolk CountyWorkforce Development
Scholarship.
We were afforded a bunch ofgrants this year.
We had a grant from OASAS aswell, our Addiction Professional
Scholarship Program, and thatwe ran through that really
quickly because it wasn'tspecific to just Suffolk
residents, that was across thestate.
So anybody who wrote andcompleted the application was

(07:37):
offered an opportunity to getthat scholarship, which we are
very grateful to OASAS for, andit's our hope that we'll get
more funding to provide thatscholarship to more people.
But the cost is a real, trueconcern, right?
Our program can run up to$6,000, but this scholarship,
especially the Suffolkscholarship, is covering the
full cost and one of the thingsthat this actually does is

(07:57):
create a great pathway forindividuals to get into
employment, because we not onlyprovide the training for our
individuals, we provide allmaterial, all training to get
them to the place where theymeet the 350-hour requirement to
become a CASAC-T.
We also place all of ourindividuals in internships, so
we have a robust careerdevelopment program, a
professional development programto get them ready to go into

(08:20):
the field, even if they may havehad experience.
No matter where you are, weprovide an internship placement
opportunity and thoseindividuals go and work in OASAS
licensed programs to providetreatment services.
In turn, they learn the 12 corefunctions of being an addiction
professional and they're ableto go on and hopefully it's a
pathway for them to gainemployment after.

Jerry Gretzinger (08:42):
Oh, that's great.
And so you were talking about350 hours.
So how long is the course toget to that point, like weeks,
months?
How long is it?

Kalisha Smith (08:52):
Yeah, so our full program is 12 months.
We do have an acceleratedprogram for individuals who have
a master's degree in socialwork, so a degree in social work
, mental health, counseling,marriage and family therapy, and

(09:13):
also there's another one.
But if you have one of thedegrees that is acceptable,
we'll review and ensure that youmeet the requirements.
To do a shorter program it's135 hours and those individuals
don't have to go through all ofthe basics because they would
have already had that.
They'll provide us a transcriptand we'll be able to
corroborate that for them.
But for anybody else there's a350 hour program.
It runs a span of 12 months andone of the beauties of OTI

(09:34):
Outreach Training Institute isthat we have rolling admissions,
so we we admit students everysingle month.
Right now we are able to takethem at different path, at
different entry points, and whatthat means is that you wouldn't
have to wait until September tocome into our program.
So our semester technically isfrom September to July, but

(09:55):
individuals don't have to startin September.
So we have a cohort that willbegin in January.
We take a little break for theholidays in December, but we'll
start a new cohort in January,especially for the Suffolk
Scholarship.
We want to try to getindividuals in for that January
cohort.
So we're telling everybody youknow get your applications in
for that December deadline sothat they can start in January

(10:16):
and then they'll go for a full12 months in our program.

Jerry Gretzinger (10:19):
All right, so the two scholarships we know
there's the OASAS one, theAddiction Professional
Scholarship, and that's.
You know, people can.
You may be down in the Brooklynarea, but they can be anywhere
and since there's a virtualcomponent they can participate
that way.
And then there's the countyscholarship and that's for
people in the county, I assume.

Kalisha Smith (10:35):
Yes, that's for individuals who reside in
Suffolk County.
We also will help them findinternships in the county and
that's really to build theSuffolk County workforce.
However, our program is open toanybody in New York so you can
be anywhere in the state andtake our program.
We're virtual.
You would never have to comeinto our training Institute.
They can do everything online.
Our interviews are doneremotely, all coordination is

(10:57):
done online and they can getright in.

Jerry Gretzinger (10:59):
It opens up opportunity with technology.

Kalisha Smith (11:01):
Yes, listen, people can learn right from the
comfort of their home.
It makes it accessible,especially when you're trying to
navigate real life right andstill working in the field as
well.
You can come right in and stillget your training.

Jerry Gretzinger (11:12):
All right, so website, phone numbers.
What do you want people to know?

Kalisha Smith (11:16):
Yes, if you go to OPINY.
org, you'll see all of ourinformation.
We are underneath the TrainingInstitute on the website.
It should pop up right in themiddle.
You'll see a slide that saysOutreach Training Institute, or
OTI, and they're able to log inand fill out an application and
we're accepting applicationsright now.

Jerry Gretzinger (11:36):
Perfect, all right, Kalisha, thank you so
much for sitting down with us.

Kalisha Smith (11:39):
Absolutely.

Jerry Gretzinger (11:40):
Nice to have you here to hear your story and
what we can do to help people goto work and do all this
important stuff.

Kalisha Smith (11:44):
Absolutely.
Thank you so much.

Jerry Gretzinger (11:46):
And once again , you know you can always go to
our website as well.
That's oasas.
ny.
gov, O-A-S-A-S.
N-Y.
G-O-V and the HOPEline877-8-HOPE-NY.
I'm your host, Jerry Gretzinger, for Addiction.
The Next Step.
Until we see you next time, bewell.