It’s been a mainstay offering at Fox Valley Technical College for decades.  

While its name may have changed over the years, the goal of the Substance Use Disorder Counseling program has remained constant: prepare students for a career supporting others who have substance use disorders. 

Department chair Miah Olson recently joined WHBY host Hayley Tenpas to discuss the Substance Use Disorder Counseling associate degree program. In the Focus on Careers interview, Miah gave great insight into the types of classes SUDC students take to prepare themselves for helping others overcome addiction and mental health challenges.  

Miah also explains where students are being hired and why so many can start their careers before they graduate.  

Tap the video to listen to the interview or scroll down to read the transcript.

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Tenpas: Our next guest comes in with Fox Valley Technical College as we Focus on Careers highlighting careers of promise here in the Fox Valley area. Today we are going to learn more together about the Substance Use Disorder Counseling program. Joining us here today is their department chair, Miah Olson with substance use disorder counseling. Miah, good afternoon, and thank you so much for being here today. 

Olson: No, thank you for having me. I appreciate the time. 

Tenpas: We are going to dig into this program a little bit and learn more about the impact students are having in Fox Valley and beyond. We first would like to get to know our guests just a little bit, if you could please tell us about yourself and how Fox Valley Tech came to be part of your career. 

Olson: I take great pride in being the department chair of the Substance Use Disorder Counseling program because that is the program that gave me the start. I was kind of uncertain after high school, I eventually got to Fox Valley Technical College and went through the Substance Use Disorder Counseling program, which was called the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counseling program, around 24 plus years ago. I graduated from that program and worked as a substance use disorder counselor for about 19 years before I came to Fox Valley Technical College and then started teaching full-time at the college. 

Tenpas: I love hearing everyone's backstory, like so many different instructors, you have some real experience and then you come to teach. 

Olson: Absolutely, I got hired straight out of my internship at Winnebago Mental Health Institute and worked there for 16 of my 19 years in the profession and worked my way up to being a supervisor at the facility, which is a state psychiatric hospital that provides substance abuse counseling and mental health services on several of the wings there. I have worked at several other agencies throughout the years providing substance abuse services there as a counselor too. 

Tenpas: Excellent, tell us a little bit about the program itself. I know it is an associate degree, but can you give us a little history lesson about how long it has been part of the college? 

Olson: Yes, that is the trick question. I have to dig into that a little bit more, it has been there for at least 24 years because I graduated 24 years ago. That is about all I can tell you regarding history, I know I am at least the third department chair of the program. 

Tenpas: We can talk about what substance abuse disorder counseling sort of is and what the job outlook looks like for those with this program as well. 

Olson: Substance abuse counseling is a specialty in terms of the counseling profession. You will hear counseling and therapy thrown around as two different words to describe different types of helping professionals. Substance abuse counselors get licensure within the State of Wisconsin to provide counseling services to people who struggle with alcohol and drug abuse, which is just their small niche. If you want to provide more therapy or counseling services like working in the mental health realm or marriage and family counseling, you have to go on and get more schooling, typically a master's degree, to do those types of therapies. The Substance Use Disorder Counseling program is an associate degree program that typically takes about two years depending on how many classes they want to take. In that process, they will get an end training license and start to provide counseling services at one of the agencies in the area and eventually work their way up to being a clinical substance abuse counselor. 

Tenpas: What does the curriculum look like? What do the class loads look like for students in this program? 

Olson: It is a mix of in-person practicing counseling skills and techniques. For example, we have an intro to interviewing class where we focus on assessments and individual counseling sessions and then we have a group facilitation class in which we do group counseling. Those types of classes are more interactive in the classroom and then we have several other classes that are more textbook-based and theory-based that look at different counseling approaches that look at understanding substance abuse and addiction in general. We have an assessment class and a case management class, which are sarcastically the fun parts of the job in which we have to do a lot of paperwork. Then we have an overview of mental health disorders class because addiction and mental health go hand in hand. You generally will not find one without the other. We have to understand mental health disorders too, and I think that's kind of a good overview of the classes. I would say we are at about a 50/50 ratio in which 50% of our classes are more of those in-person lab-type classes, and the other 50% are more theory textbook-type classes. 

Tenpas: Interesting and what stuck out to me as you were describing some of those classes is the interviewing course that you offer, because I am sure when learning to be a substance use disorder counselor, you need to learn how to get to know people, their struggles, trauma and their grips on things too. What is an interesting course to take to learn how to get to know people? 

Olson: That is a real specialty within our profession too because you have to get to know somebody relatively fast and on the spot. The first part of our job is to do an assessment, and we ask a lot of personal questions and try to get to know a person quickly. It takes time to get comfortable with a person and we work hard to develop good rapport quickly with the client so that hopefully they provide honest and detailed answers so that we can help them as best as we possibly can. Some of our clients are really guarded and have significant trauma and trust issues, and they struggle to open up to us. That is one of those skills that we work hard to do the best we can because if we do not have good relationships with our clients, we are not going to be very helpful.  

Tenpas: That being said, what kind of student are you looking for who might thrive in this type of program? What things maybe should they be interested in or skilled at to make them a success in this program? 

Olson: First, those good interpersonal skills are really important to being able to communicate. When I say communicate it is not just talking, it is being able to listen. Being able to decipher what the client is saying, meaning and being able to follow up with good open-ended questions will be helpful. I do not think there is one type of person that is best for this profession because I think each of us kind of needs our own individual counselor, and that counselor is going to vary in style. It takes good communication skills, and it also takes good boundaries, this is one of those professions where it can be taxing. You have to set limits for yourself, and you have to set limits with your clients and not cross those boundaries, because that is where you are either going to get in trouble or we're going to burn out in the profession because you are not taking care of yourself well enough. 

Tenpas: Interesting, we are going to pause here but when we come back, we will talk further about where students are finding jobs and where they are being hired. This program is just a step for some students into continuing into this area of study. We will talk more about what those paths might look like as we highlight the Substance Use Disorder Counseling program through Fox Valley Technical College. It is our Focus on Careers, we will return after this. 

Tenpas: Welcome back. Focus Fox Valley with you today and our Focus on Careers, helping us learn more about the Substance Use Disorder Counseling program. We have their department chair, Miah Olson, joining us here today helping us better understand the program. I think a lot of questions that folks have when it comes to college programs is what kind of positions or job a student would be prepared for with this associate degree. Miah, what are you preparing students to enter the workforce with? 

Olson: One of the things I did not talk about before was our program comes with an internship, and that really helps our students transition into jobs as substance abuse counselors. The college has great support from pretty much every treatment center, from Appleton to Oshkosh to Manitowoc to Green Lake to Waupaca. We have agencies that we work with, and we get our students into internships there and then a lot of the time it turns out to be a job. We have students commonly getting hired at Apricity, which operates a mooring house in Casa Claire. Those are residential treatment facilities where clients stay usually between 30 and 45 days, to get treatment for alcohol and drug abuse. We have students getting hired at the Drug Abuse Correctional Center, which is a minimum-security prison down in Oshkosh in which clients complete a treatment program to get out of prison earlier. We have people working at the opioid treatment programs in Appleton and Oshkosh. The Oshkosh Correctional Institute prison, Winnebago Mental Health Institute all have jobs in which they are providing alcohol and drug abuse counseling services to their clients or people in their care. The counselors are doing a lot of similar things in their role where they are assessing the client that we talked about, and we make a recommendation for what level of care they need. They also provide individual and group counseling, developing treatment plans that help the clients achieve goals to help in the long term with their success, there is a lot there. There are many different agencies in this area that are providing great services to clients with substance abuse issues. 

Tenpas: You mentioned several there, Miah, who have been guests on this program as we highlight substance abuse and such. I find it also very bittersweet to know we have so many places for these students to be hired, because that means that there are so many folks out there struggling with substance abuse issues. Can you speak to that reality? And the role that your students are playing and helping people overcome something that is really a traumatic and tricky thing in life? 

Olson: There are a couple of interesting things that counselors say. One of them is that they are hope dealers and I think that our students who become counselors and the counselors that are out there, they are making a difference every single day in multiple people's lives, trying to help change their life for the better. The problem is not going away and unfortunately, the problem seems to be growing. The job market has never been better because there is such a need but that also being said, there are not enough counselors out there to provide services for those that need it. Much like with anything that is built through health insurance, the services are not easy to get for some people, and some people do not have health insurance or do not have good health insurance. They are using systems that are really taxed and do not have enough counselors to provide those services. Hopefully, we get more students through our program and continue to put those good quality counselors out there to help more and more people, because that is definitely a need. 

Tenpas: Absolutely, we are really lucky to have this program at Fox Valley Tech. Is this a program where students can take their education a bit further, and if so, what do you see your graduates doing after they complete the program at Fox Valley Tech? 

Olson: Yes, that was absolutely part of my journey. I went on and got my bachelor's degree in psychology and then my master's degree eventually. A lot of my students go on and become social workers, psychologists, human service workers, marriage and family therapists, there are a lot of different avenues they can take this two-year degree. A lot of colleges will take Fox Valley Technical College’s credits as transfer credits, so they do not have to take as many credits when they go on to another school. From a job market perspective, it has been beneficial for students who go on and get a social work license and have that license along with alcohol and drug abuse counselor because there are a lot of agencies that are looking for social workers with the alcohol and drug abuse counseling credential. It makes them more valuable to the agency that they come and work at. 

Tenpas: Well, Miah, as we have talked a lot about the program, I am hoping there might be listeners out there who are intrigued or maybe want to share with their child or want to pass along to a potential student. Where can folks find information about the program and learn more about what is offered at Fox Valley Tech? 

Olson: The Fox Valley Tech website is wwwfvtc.edu/sudc. You also can do just do a general search in the Fox Valley Tech website for Substance Use Disorder Counseling program too.  

Tenpas: Miah, thank you again for being part of the program here today. It is always great to learn more about the different areas of study at Fox Valley Tech and of course, connect to several employers in the area as well. Thanks again for being with us.