Training Curricula
I’m continuously evolving the following trainings and developing new ones. I will work
with you to customize these trainings or develop new trainings to meet your needs.
Clarifying ASAM Criteria
The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) has developed the most comprehensive set of guidelines for the placement, continued stay, transfer, and discharge of patients experiencing addiction, with or without co-occurring conditions.
It is the most widely used framework for providing outcome-oriented, results-based care in addiction treatment.
But how does that translate into actual practice? What is the ASAM Criteria, and how can you integrate it into your work?
Clarifying ASAM Criteria courses are designed to equip you with the knowledge needed to use it confidently and effectively in your practice.
Understanding The ASAM Criteria
Changes to the fourth edition of the ASAM criteria
ASAM levels of care service components
Helping People Change, Heal, and Grow
There’s much more to the therapeutic process than knowledge of conditions and treatment strategies. Helping patients create real, lasting change in their lives involves harnessing feelings of alliance and allegiance. When patients feel that you care and believe their time with you is valuable and meaningful, you can reach even the most difficult-to-engage clients.
This doesn’t mean trying harder to empathize or tolerating unengaged behavior. With the Helping People Change courses, you’ll learn detailed techniques you can rely on repeatedly to help clients open up and empower themselves.
Moving beyond compliance to lasting change
How to motivate and engage hard-to-reach people into accountable, collaborative treatment
What you can do to make or break the therapeutic alliance
Engaging participants in accountable change
How motivational interviewing can help begin the change conversation
Difficult to reach patients and clients
Advanced Motivational Interviewing skills
Motivational interviewing 101
RECOVERY AND MENTAL ILLNESS
We focus on supporting individuals through every step of recovery from mental illness. Our compassionate, evidence-based approach empowers patients to manage symptoms, build resilience, and regain control of their lives.
The strengths model
Principles of personal recovery care
Enhancing Clinical Skills and Outcomes
It’s easy to get caught up in the operation of your practice and approach patient care solely from your perspective as a provider. However, this can lead to poor patient outcomes if a patient-centered approach to treatment planning is not taken.
This series of trainings helps you build skills and develop treatment plans that truly center on the patients you serve. By focusing on person-centered care, your patients will experience better outcomes, and you’ll learn to “walk the talk,” fostering more meaningful connections with those you treat.
Beyond treatment planning: collaborative care planning
Providing individualized patient centered care in group settings
Healing in Harmony: communication, collaboration, and conflict resolution
Practices for optimizing engagement and minimizing dropout
How to get better results: The secrets to clinical excellence
Feedback Informed Treatment: What is it, Why do it, and how to do it
What to do with poor outcomes
Person-Centered services: What do you really mean and walking the talk
How to leverage feedback and deliberate practice to optimize outcomes
The four pillars of the therapeutic alliance: Creating and optimizing the ingredients for good outcomes
How to create a solid therapeutic alliance
Skill building in the therapeutic alliance
How to stop judging and blaming clients and develop more effective attitudes
Principles of therapeutic communication
Good formulations beget good outcomes: collaboratively creating a shared understanding with clients/patients
Developing client-friendly recovery plans: Enhancing documentation and clinical use of plans and progress notes
How to do effective collaborative recovery planning
Enhancing outcomes in substance use disorder treatment
Understanding and Treating Addictions
As new research emerges and innovative treatment methods are developed, we’re learning that addiction is far more than a brain disease. To truly support those struggling with addiction, practitioners must equip themselves with the latest knowledge.
That’s the goal of this training series. Packed with information that can profoundly change the way you view addiction, each session provides the knowledge you need to help your patients more deeply than ever before.
Promoting recovery through network therapy and CRAFT: leveraging concerned collaterals
Slips, slides, and sobriety: dealing with return2 to use
Discovery, dropout prevention versus recovery, relapse prevention: doing treatment and change, not doing time
Why integrating addiction and other psychiatric treatments is difficult, and what to do about it
Principles of addiction treatment
Recovery management: What do you really mean and Walking the Talk about recovery
Pharmacotherapy for complex substance use disorders (one day workshop)
Integrated and collaborative treatment of multimorbidity/co-occurring disorders
Medications for addictions treatment
The neurobiology of addiction
What they never taught you in school about substance use an addiction, and what to do about it
Trauma
The neurobiology of trauma and its treatment implications
A trauma-centric approach to healing and recovery from addictions and another psychiatric conditions
Trauma 101: the nature of trauma and how to heal it
Justice-Involved Treatment
Working with patients who require court-ordered mental health treatment presents intense challenges. Patients aren’t always engaged, and relapse often feels just around the corner. You may feel like you’re helping your patients “do their time,” without seeing them achieve lasting change.
There is hope when treating challenging patients in the court system—when you have the right support.
From learning how to work with unengaged patients to knowing exactly what to say when collaborating with law enforcement and court teams, Dr. Michael McGee’s justice-involved treatment trainings provide actionable knowledge you can apply in your practice. You’ll leave the training inspired to continue making a difference in your community.
Secrets for successful transition to the community and reducing recidivism
What to do when participants aren’t participating: strategies for maximizing participation and minimizing drop....
Improving communication and multidisciplinary team work: how to communicate and integrate treatment and case infor.....
Words matter: terminology that inhibits successful outcomes and what to say if in a court team, law enforcement or tre..
Five key principles in helping people change: implications for policies and practices in drug in treatment courts
Discharge, suspend, or sanction?: improving skills and systems to deal with return to use, continued use, and conti...
Don't give treatment a bad name: what you need to know and do to work with mandated clients
Doing time or doing change? Collaborating for accountable treatment and recovery
Moving beyond compliance to lasting change: how the ASAM criteria and evidence- based practices can help
Why punishment doesn’t work to produce lasting change and alternatives to sanctions
Motivational interviewing in justice-involved settings; how to help mandated participants change and grow
Clinician and Organizational Well-Being and Vitality
Your passion is helping patients, but with such a singular focus on patient care, your practice can begin to show cracks. Without the right organizational strategies, it can falter under the weight of conflicts, burnout, and other challenges.
With over 30 years of experience and equipped with the latest research and information, Dr. Michael McGee offers a variety of trainings designed to help you maintain a healthy mindset and a strong team, even while working with patients facing the most challenging addictions and mental health issues.
How to survive and thrive during integration implementation
Maintaining a healthy team
Compassion fatigue, communication, conflict, and coping
Words matter: terminology that inhibits successful outcomes and what to say if in a court team, law enforcement or tre..
Five key principles in helping people change: implications for policies and practices in drug in treatment courts
Discharge, suspend, or sanction?: improving skills and systems to deal with return to use, continued use, and conti...
Don't give treatment a bad name: what you need to know and do to work with mandated clients
Doing time or doing change? Collaborating for accountable treatment and recovery
Moving beyond compliance to lasting change: how the ASAM criteria and evidence- based practices can help
Why punishment doesn’t work to produce lasting change and alternatives to sanctions
Motivational interviewing in justice-involved settings; how to help mandated participants change and grow
Organizational and systems trainings
Trainings designed to optimize organizational workflows and strengthen systems for efficiency, consistency, and improved team performance.
Leveraging AI for professional development: promises, perils, and pitfalls
Feedback informed management: what is it, how to do it, and why
Being the best: implementing systems for feedback, supervision, and deliberate practice
Cultivating a just and feedback friendly culture
Feedback informed treatment: leveraging implementation science to make it work
One-Day and Multi-Day Trainings, Online or In-Person, That Are Completely Customized According to Your Needs
No matter the size of your team or the challenges you face, Dr. Michael McGee can personalize a training session just for you.
Each session includes from-the-heart techniques based on Dr. McGee’s Be Well, Do Well approach, supporting clinician wellness and clinical skill as the first step toward patient wellness. You’ll return to your practice with knowledge and strategies that reinvigorate your mindset, enabling you to provide even better care to those you serve.
