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Pennsylvania State Senate
08/16/2024 03:46 PM
Pennsylvania State Senate
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/CSM/showMemoPublic.cfm?SPick=20230&chamber=S&cosponId=42796
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Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2023 - 2024 Regular Session

MEMORANDUM

Posted: June 4, 2024 09:35 AM
From: Senator Christine M. Tartaglione
To: All Senate members
Subject: Additional Staffing Flexibilities for Pennsylvania's Addiction Treatment Workforce
 
I will soon introduce legislation that will provide additional staffing flexibilities to Pennsylvania’s drug and alcohol addiction treatment programs.
 
In 2023, our Commonwealth took an important step in bolstering our thinly stretched addiction treatment workforce by enacting Act 66 with near unanimous support in both chambers. Authored by Senator Brooks and me, Act 66 modified several of the Department of Drug and Alcohol Program’s (DDAP) staffing regulations to relax client/staff ratios and qualification requirements for people seeking to work in the field. As was our intention, these regulatory flexibilities are allowing our licensed addiction treatment programs to maintain levels of treatment and expand their workforce in the midst of the ongoing opioid epidemic. However, there is still more we can do to build on Act 66 and support Pennsylvania’s ability to address the opiate crisis.
 
In turn, my legislation creates additional flexibilities within DDAP’s staffing regulations, only applicable during an opioid epidemic, that:
 
  • Allows people in recovery from alcohol and drug addiction, interns, and apprentices to serve as counselors provided they have at least one year of experience working in a licensed program under an individualized training plan.
  • Suspends unnecessary requirements regarding the promotion of counselor assistant to counselor.
  • Prohibits new qualification conditions or requirements to obtain additional credentials from being levied on addiction treatment programs.
 
There is no shortage of dedicated people willing to be trained to help others overcome addiction and as legislators, we should cultivate pathways for them to both join and advance within the addiction treatment field.
 
Please join me in supporting this important legislation.  
 


Introduced as SB1243