This 12-hour comprehensive continuing education course provides practical, evidence-based training to help professionals effectively engage youth and families affected by substance use, drawing on the principles and practices of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT). Designed for clinicians and transdisciplinary professionals seeking skills they can immediately apply, the course combines eight in-depth lectures, 23 video demonstrations, written materials, and structured clinical practice exercises to illustrate how solution-focused conversations unfold in real-world substance use treatment settings.

Substance use concerns often occur within the context of strained family relationships, uncertainty about change, and involvement with schools, healthcare systems, courts, or child welfare agencies. Engaging youth and families in these circumstances, particularly when individuals are ambivalent, externally referred, or hesitant to participate, requires approaches that strengthen therapeutic relationships, promote safety, foster hope, and support meaningful change.

Grounded in the evidence-based principles of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, this course demonstrates how purposeful, collaborative conversations can help identify strengths, amplify existing resources, build motivation, and support progress toward goals that matter most to youth and families. Participants observe authentic clinical interactions through extensive video demonstrations, gaining a clear understanding of how solution-focused questions are introduced, refined, and naturally integrated into conversations while using each person’s own language to enhance engagement and collaboration.

Throughout the course, participants develop a practical framework for applying solution-focused principles across individual, family, and group settings. Guided by lectures, case examples, clinical demonstrations, and practice exercises, they build the confidence and competence to translate what they learn into everyday practice. By the end of the course, participants will have practical, immediately applicable skills they can confidently use to strengthen engagement, support resilience, and facilitate meaningful change with youth, families, and transdisciplinary teams across substance use treatment and community settings.

Participants learn solution-focused strategies to:

• Build engagement with youth and families who are ambivalent or externally referred
• Support agency and coping amid substance use, trauma, and ongoing stress
• Strengthen safety and recovery using engagement-focused assessment tools
• Sustain progress across relapse, chronic pain, and other complex, ongoing stressors

Delivery Method
This is an asynchronous, noninteractive, self-paced online course consisting of required written course materials, recorded video lectures and clinical demonstrations, course section examinations, and a course evaluation.

Last Updated: July 2026

Target Audience:  Social workers, psychologists, counselors, marriage and family therapists, substance use disorder professionals, school counselors, school psychologists, school social workers, nurses, physicians, advanced practice providers, peer support specialists, case managers, and other professionals involved in the prevention, assessment, treatment, and recovery of youth and families affected by substance use.

Content Level: Beginner

Prerequisites: No prior training in Solution-Focused Brief Therapy is required.

Registration deadline: There is no registration deadline. Enrollment is available on a rolling basis, and participants may begin the course immediately after registration.

System requirements: Participants need a reliable internet connection, a current web browser, speakers or headphones, the ability to stream video, and a device capable of opening PDF documents. The course may be accessed on a computer, tablet, or compatible mobile device.

Participant support and instructor communication: Participants may contact info@solutionfocused.net with questions regarding course content, registration, technical support, or certificates of completion. Questions are reviewed by the instructor or knowledgeable course staff, and responses are typically provided within 24 hours.

Registration: Register and pay online by selecting “Purchase Course” above. Access instructions are emailed immediately after successful registration.

Financial Disclosure and Commercial Support
The Institute for Solution-Focused Therapy and all instructional personnel involved in this continuing education program have no relevant financial relationships or conflicts of interest to disclose. This continuing education activity is presented solely for educational purposes and has received no commercial support. No product endorsements are expressed or implied.

By the end of this program, participants will be able to:

Section One: Overview of Substance Use Disorders in Youth and Families

1. Describe substance use disorder as a serious, chronic health condition that begins in childhood or adolescence and impacts individuals, families, and communities.
2. Recognize how adolescent brain development, including asynchronous maturation of reward and impulse-control systems, increases vulnerability to substance use and addiction.
3. Distinguish key risk and protective factors for adolescent substance use, including family influences, developmental factors, and environmental context.
4. Differentiate evidence-based treatment approaches for adolescent and young adult substance use disorders, including integrated, family-based, and solution-focused interventions.
5. Identify how Solution-Focused practices support agency, emotional regulation, and trauma-informed care by emphasizing choice, strengths, and forward movement without requiring detailed trauma exploration.

Section Two: Overview of the Solution-Focused Approach

1. Differentiate the solution-building paradigm from problem-solving approaches by explaining how Solution-Focused Brief Therapy emphasizes client competence, strengths, and resources rather than weaknesses or deficits in substance use treatment conversations.
2. Analyze the order shift in Solution-Focused practice by identifying how beginning conversations with agency activation, coping, and existing resources influence client engagement and affect in early treatment.
3. Distinguish problem-focused language from Solution-Focused languaging by recognizing how word choice, verb tense, and presuppositional questions shape agency, meaning, and direction.
4. Identify observable language, agency, and affect shifts in video vignettes by recognizing how Solution-Focused questions alter client engagement, emotional tone, and self-described action in the first minutes of conversation.

Section Three: Agency Activation and Amygdala Whispering

1. Define amygdala whispering and identify its core components (emotional yes-set, “for you” statements, and indirect compliments) as strategies for calming emotional reactivity and supporting engagement in substance use–related interactions.
2. Differentiate between direct compliments and indirect compliments by selecting clinician statements that activate client agency and compassion in substance use–focused video vignettes.
3. Identify Solution-Focused lines of questioning that amplify positive differences by drawing attention to coping, effort, or small improvements in substance use–related vignettes.

Section Four: VIP Mapping in SUD

1. Define VIP Mapping and classify VIP categories in substance use treatment.
2. Identify Solution-Focused questions that elicit VIPs and relationship resources.
3. Explain how VIP Mapping improves engagement and motivation for clients affected by substance use.

Section Five: Best Hope Mapping in SUD

1. Identify the key elements of Best Hope Mapping in substance use treatment, including best hopes, client-defined meaning, and VIP perspectives.
2. Distinguish action-oriented, positive root verbs from problem-focused language when identifying client goals.
3. Select Solution-Focused questions that elicit best hopes and support engagement in substance use–related clinical scenarios.
4. Interpret how VIP, VIPP, and spiritual-VIP perspectives can broaden goal formulation and strengthen engagement in youth and family contexts.
5. Apply the Miracle Question to translate client hopes into observable and scalable behaviors.

Section Six: Solution-Focused Scaling in SUD

1. Classify scaling questions as Solution-Focused or problem-focused based on whether they assess coping, confidence, or managing versus symptom severity in substance use–related examples.
2. Choose solution-focused scaling questions that are anchored in a client’s stated best hopes and action-oriented verbs in brief substance use–related clinical scenarios.
3. Determine appropriate clinician follow-up questions for working the scale after a client gives a number by identifying responses that explore what keeps the number from being lower, what supports its current level, or what would indicate a small increase.

Section Seven: Solution-Focused Safety Assessment and Crisis Management in SUD

1. Identify public health trends in suicide, overdose, and injury among youth and young adults with SUD that justify the need for safety assessment in behavioral health settings.
2. Differentiate SF safety questions from problem-focused risk questions.
3. Recognize protective factors elicited through SF safety questions.
4. Evaluate scaling questions used to work the safety scale.
5. Identify clinician prompts that elicit reasons for staying safe during crisis contexts.

Section Eight: Follow-up, Graduation, and Challenging Situations in SUD

1. Identify follow-up session prompts that notice positive differences, amplify coping, and activate agency
2. Differentiate Solution-Focused responses used in group substance use settings by identifying prompts that highlight coping, strengths, vicarious resilience, and shared learning among group members.
3. Analyze how clinicians move through the 4-Square Framework (Best Hopes, Scaling, VIP Mapping, Amygdala Whispering/Languaging) within a brief 12-minute group interaction
4. Differentiate vicarious resilience from vicarious trauma in Solution-Focused group encounters by identifying interactions where group members witness coping, endurance, and functioning in others.
5. Analyze clinician responses to relapse by selecting statements that frame relapse as a sign of success and learning in substance use recovery.
6. Apply compassionate Solution-Focused strategies in chronic pain and substance use scenarios by choosing questions that honor lived experience while emphasizing coping, functioning, and agency

This course consists of the following components. The program must be completed in order, and your Certificate of Completion will be issued only after all required components have been completed.

1. Course Introduction
2. Written Course Materials (PDF)
3. Recorded Video Lecture and Clinical Demonstrations
4. Exam Instructions and Exam Preview
5. Complete the Course Examination and achieve a passing score of 80% or higher
6. Course Evaluation
7. Certificate of Completion

Course Outline and Estimated Completion Time

• Course Introduction — 15 minutes
• Required Written Course Materials (including structured practice exercises) — 3 hours
• Recorded Video Lectures and Clinical Demonstrations — 8 hours
• Eight Course Section Examinations (120 total multiple-choice questions) — 45 minutes
• Course Evaluation — 15 minutes

Total instructional and assessment time — 12 hours

Because this course is self-paced, participants may take breaks as needed. Break time is not included in the 12 CE credit hours.

Participants complete eight course section examinations consisting of a total of 125 multiple-choice questions designed to assess their knowledge and application of the course learning objectives. A minimum score of 80% is required to pass each course section examination. Participants may retake any section examination as needed until a passing score is achieved. There are no graded assignments other than the course section examinations.

12  CE Credit/Clock Hours are available for this course.

Please visit our Continuing Education Information page for details on CE credits, clock hours, and our accreditations and approvals for psychologists, social workers, and counselors. The Institute for Solution-Focused Therapy offers continuing education credits. Click here for more information: 

Participants are encouraged to check with their professional licensing boards to make sure that a specific course will be accepted for their continuing education requirements.

Psychologists

The Institute for Solution-Focused Therapy, LLC, is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Institute for Solution-Focused Therapy, LLC, maintains responsibility for this program and its content. Psychologists completing this course receive 12 continuing education hours.

The Institute is also recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists (#PSY-0127).

Social Workers

The Institute for Solution-Focused Therapy, provider number 1831, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 9/22/2023 – 9/22/2026. Social workers completing this course receive 12 Clinical continuing education credits.

The Institute is also approved by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work (#SW-0656), and by the Florida Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy, and Mental Health Counseling.

Counselors
The Institute for Solution-Focused Therapy, LLC has been approved by the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7049.  The Institute for Solution-Focused Therapy, LLC, is solely responsible for all aspects of the program. Counselors completing this course receive 12 clock hours.

The Institute is also approved by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors (#MHC-0233), and by the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker, and Marriage and Family Therapist Board.

Once enrolled, you may begin your course at any time.

Cancellation Policy

Because this is an asynchronous, self-paced online course, participants may begin the course immediately upon successful registration and payment.

Participants may discontinue the course at any time. Refund requests are subject to the Institute’s Refund Policy. The Institute for Solution-Focused Therapy reserves the right to cancel, discontinue, postpone, or modify a course due to unforeseen circumstances. If this occurs, participants will be notified promptly and may be offered continued access, an equivalent course, an extension of access, or an appropriate refund or credit, as determined by the circumstances.

For complete information regarding enrollment and cancellation, please review our Policies, Terms, and Statements, including: