Youth Alcohol and Other Drugs Toolbox

The ‘Toolbox’ provides practitioners in the youth alcohol and other drug (AOD) sector with reliable and up-to-date evidence and literature that enables workers to increase their knowledge and enrich their practice.

There is a vast range of resources and information across three main areas:

• Basic principles of youth AOD work
• Theories and frameworks that guide AOD work
• Therapeutic models – established theories and interventions used in youth AOD work

There are also a variety of modules that practitioners can work through at their own pace to further understand an area of youth AOD work, organised around specific practice or clinical issues:

• Foundation Modules – the essential skills of youth-work (engaging, active listening, crisis intervention, relationship-based practice, and worker self-care).
• Specialist AOD Modules – essential background and practical knowledge in the youth AOD field including harm reduction, relapse prevention and response.
• Casework Modules – practical tools of delivering youthwork services in any organisation.
• Resilience/Recovery Modules – divided into three suites of modules developed from the framework for resilience based intervention (social/ecological modules, knowledge and skills modules, beliefs modules)
• Issue-based Modules – current and practice-relevant information about different issue areas (grief, trauma-informed care, self-injury, blood-borne viruses, sexual health, suicidality and managing agression and violent situations).
• Population-based Modules – looks at specific issues affecting particular groups in the youth AOD population (working with families, GLBTI young people, young people on the autism spectrum)