Located at the University of Washington’s Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute (ADAI) as of October 2017, the Northwest ATTC seeks to accelerate community-based implementation of evidence-based practices (EBPs) for treatment and recovery by:

• Sponsoring training online and in-person to enhance clinical knowledge and skills, and adoption of EBPs,
• Providing intensive technical assistance to support systems change and organizational efforts to implement EBPs, 
• Offering consultation for systems-level change in the emerging new landscape for behavioral health care, 
• Disseminating science-based information on EBPs, cultural competence, and more.

Learn more about what we do in Region 10 in our informational flyer.

Learn more about us in our informational flyer!

What is Technical Assistance?

The Northwest ATTC reaches large segments of the addiction workforce in a multi-state region via diverse professional education activities. These activities are encompassed under a rubric of what is now commonly termed "technical assistance" (TA), which includes:

• Universal TA: resource-sharing or one-time events like webinars that offer orienting information to promote awareness of a clinical practice
• Targeted TA: serial learning processes that increase individual workforce members' skills, knowledge, and overall readiness to implement the clinical practice
• Intensive TA: longitudinal and systems-level consultative support to health organizations to foster implementation and sustainment of a clinical practice by the workforce members they employ. 

Because intensive TA involves a longer-term and substantial commitment for all involved, the Northwest ATTC finds it beneficial to organize this work by the chronology of a Exploration-Preparation-Implementation-Sustainment (EPIS) model. As illustrated here, we sequentially bundle strategies for implementation support according to the four EPIS phases (click the graphic to view it full-size).

This Northwest ATTC approach to intensive TA has informed successful community implementation of a dozen EBPs and organizational processes. Our approach to intensive TA is described in invited journal publications (Hartzler 2023 & Hartzler et al, 2023), referenced as an exemplar in a SAMHSA Cross-TTC infographic about external facilitation, and demonstrated in project reports of community partners’ successes in implementing Motivational Interviewing and improving dual diagnosis capability by integrating mental health and SUD services.

What is the ATTC Network?

Learn more about technical assistance and how the ATTC supports the addiction workforce in these engaging short videos from the Network (available in English and Spanish).