As part of the capacity developing component of the global project "TREATNET II: Treating drug dependence and its health consequences", the UNODC Regional Office for Central Asia convened a training of trainers programme for social workers from Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The training was held in Tashkent on 6-10
th August 2012 and led by three UNODC consultants who were responsible for the design, development, leading and facilitating the training programme.
The training was built upon the Treatnet Training Package (Volume A and B), which 22 participants attending this training were
familiar with. The emphasis and deliveries of the training elements were on care, treatment and recovery with joint-up thinking, partnership working, user experience and participation, using a biopsychosocial model of training framework, but lesser on the clinical side and making more use of community engagement approaches. Ice breaking exercises were also used as good practice. Opportunities were made available for each country to present their model of drug treatment service delivery. The roles of social workers, as they are perceived by each country's participants, given social workers as a discipline would be a new concept in most of these countries, were specifically discussed with facilitation by the trainers. The absence of social workers per se as a professional discipline was identified as a major gap in the provision of care and treatment for substance misusers. The key roles of social workers within an integrated model of care for substance misusers thus became a central theme of this training.
Implicit in this training was to identify the differing roles of social workers amongst these five countries and to reach and develop common core standards. This will enable the development of a set of agreed occupational competencies of the roles of social workers.
