Women’s Intervention for Substance Exposure: Comprehensive Care for Substance Use Disorder (WISE)

The WISE Curriculum was created to increase understanding of women’s unique treatment needs and how to address them through practical knowledge and techniques. The four-course curriculum specifies how treating women for substance use disorders differs from treating those of men, and how to respond to women’s needs appropriately. It offers participants the tools and strategies to identify, assess, and treat women for substance use disorders with the goal of improving and optimizing outcomes and sustaining recovery.

Example Materials
WISE Course 1 2020 Participant.pdf

UTC 41: Clinical Care for Women with Substance Use Disorders

This 5-day foundational course examines the core competencies needed to treat women as well as what makes women unique—as compared to men—in their illness trajectory, including substance use initiation, use, treatment and recovery. It addresses basic theories and concepts that underpin substance use disorder treatment with women and legal and ethical issues that providers often face when treating women for substance use disorders.

UTC 42: Trauma Responsive and Family-Centered Care for Women and their Children

This course defines trauma and a trauma-responsive environment in substance use disorder treatment. It then addresses how trauma-specific treatment is specifically integrated into women’s substance use disorder treatment, including the importance of teaching staff working with women in a substance use disorder treatment setting about trauma-responsive care. The course concludes with evidence-based approaches to empower women to enhance parenting and how family-centered care can be integrated into women’s treatment for substance use disorders.

UTC 43: Caring for Women with Substance Use Disorders across the Lifespan and in Specialized Circumstances

This course addresses the stages of life and when special considerations are needed. Ages include children, adolescents, young adult, middle adult, pregnancy and the postpartum period and older women. It also covers a broad category of women dislocated or displaced from the home environment. The types of situations in this broad category includes: homeless adults and youth, human trafficking survivors, involved with criminal justice system (incarcerated and post-incarcerated), and military service members (active duty, discharge from military and veterans).

UTC 44: Creating and Implementing a Women-Responsive Substance Use Disorder Treatment Model of Care

The final course unites all of the information in the previous courses into practical model of care. It examines each of the core components of women’s SUD treatment and recovery. Participants are guided through how to develop an action plan to put women-centered treatment into place.