Substance Abuse Counselor Job Description
A substance abuse counselor is a mental health professional who focuses on patients who are struggling with substance abuse. It would be inaccurate to call a substance abuse counselor a therapist. Instead, they work with their patients in more of a mentoring and advisory role.
The substance abuse counselor will work with patients who are already addicted to illicit substances and those who may become addicted. The counselor will help the patient find a job, understand the nature of their addiction, and give them concrete plans that they can use to improve their life. Substance abuse counselors also commonly work with the patient’s family to teach them how to support the patient’s recovery.
Substance Abuse Counselor Job Description Template
We are looking to add a skilled substance abuse counselor to our team. In this role, it will be your job to provide direction and support to patients who have been struggling with substance abuse. You will speak with each patient to determine their individual problems and create personalized care plans to help them move towards a better life.
As a part of this job, your tasks will include working with families to help them provide better support to a patient, create concrete plans to help a patient improve their life, and explain the nature of the patient’s addiction to them, among other things. You may also need to help the patient identify behaviors that prohibit their recovery and to offer solutions for those.
If you believe that you would excel in this position, then we’d love to hear from you.
Substance Abuse Counselor Responsibilities:
- Support patients who are struggling with substance abuse through targeted care
- Evaluate a patient’s behaviors to identify and explain the ones that are inhibiting their progress
- Work with a patient to create action plans they can follow to live a healthier, happier life
- Collaborate with other healthcare professionals to ensure a patient receives the best care possible
- Facilitate individual and group counseling sessions
Substance Abuse Counselor Requirements:
- Bachelor’s degree in chemical dependency counseling or a related field
- All state and federal counseling licenses
- Previous experience in working directly with patients
- In-depth knowledge of the best practices for substance abuse treatment
- Ability and willingness to support the unique recovery needs of a diverse patient population
Substance Abuse Counselor FAQ
What tasks does a substance abuse counselor complete?
It’s a substance abuse counselor’s job to help patients who are struggling with substance abuse issues. They identify a patient’s problems, evaluate their condition, and then create a targeted care plan to help the patient recover. This often involves working with a patient’s family and collaborating with other healthcare professionals.
What should I include in my substance abuse counselor help-wanted ads?
For the best results, we recommend following the outline that we’ve used in our template. You want to start with a general description of the job and include the information that your applicants will be most interested in early on in the ad. Once you’ve done that, you can create two lists that provide a more detailed look at the responsibilities and requirements of the job.
Can I use your substance abuse counselor job description template?
Yes, you can use our job description templates however you’d like. However, you’ll get the best results if you expand on what we’ve written here to include the parts of your job that make it unique.
For example, your substance abuse counselor position may include different responsibilities or requirements than the ones that we’ve written about above. Make sure to include those so that your potential applicants have all of the information they need to make a decision about applying.
