For Social Workers: Facilitating MOUD Within Other Healthcare Settings

As a social worker, you are an essential part of the continuum of care for people with a substance use disorder (SUD) or opioid use disorder (OUD). Although you do not prescribe medications for the treatment of these disorders, your support is crucial in helping people access appropriate care to improve their health and overcome barriers to achieving their treatment and recovery goals.

The Role of Social Workers

There are various pathways to recovery. Social workers provide the emotional, psychological, and social supports necessary for individuals to achieve their recovery goals. The use of Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved medications for OUD (MOUD) is one component of an evidence-based care plan that may also include counseling, behavioral therapies, and medical and social services to meet the needs of each individual.

See the National Association of Social Workers’ (NASW) Tips & Tools for Social Workers – Social Workers Can Help with the Substance Use Crisis for more information and specialized substance use training.

With the elimination of the DATA-Waiver (X-Waiver), more practitioners can now prescribe buprenorphine for the treatment of OUD in primary care and other non-specialty settings without need for a special waiver, where permitted by state law. This policy change enhances your role on the continuum of care, allowing you to provide essential support, reduce stigma, facilitate warm handoffs, and ensure that patients remain engaged in their self-directed recovery.

Integrating MOUD into Social Work Practice

Resources for Social Work Practice

• View the NASW’s Standards for Social Work Practice with Clients with Substance Use Disorder.
• NASW also offers a Certified Clinical Alcohol, Tobacco & Other Drugs Social Worker credential that trains Masters-level professionals to treat SUD and hosts an Online Continuing Education Institute with coursework on SUD.
• The Council on Social Work Education hosts several webinars as part of its Learning Academy to help social workers address SUD more thoroughly, equitably, and effectively in their clinical practice.
• Review the NASW ATOD Specialty Practice Section’s article Mutual Aid and Informed Consent (PDF | 694 KB), which discusses how to educate clients on the benefits and potential risks of mutual aid meeting participation and become savvy to those that support MOUD.

Client-Centered Counseling Approaches

Assessment and Screening

• Use NIDA-validated screening tools to assess patients for SUD and to determine the appropriate level of care.
• A useful resource on motivational interviewing and the treatment of SUD is the SAMHSA Advisory: Using Motivational Interviewing in Substance Use Disorder Treatment (based on TIP 35).
• Screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) is an effective approach for substance use intervention. For a comprehensive understanding of SBIRT, you can explore SAMHSA’s SBIRT page.

Integrated Care

• Explore SAMHSA’s resources on co-occurring disorders and other health conditions, which are common recurrent, and often serious, but treatable and many people do recover.
• Read the SAMHSA Advisory: The Substance Use Disorder Counseling Competency Framework (based on TAP 21), which discusses the development of counseling competencies, including cultural responsiveness, and outlines how these competencies are changing the field of SUD treatment nationwide.

Engaging Patients in MOUD

• NASW’s Tips & Tools for Social Workers – Social Workers Can Help with the Substance Use Crisis
• Check out the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Linking People With Opioid Use Disorder to Medication Treatment: A Technical Package of Policy, Programs, and Practices.