The Faculty of Addictions, part of the British Psychological Society’s Division of Clinical Psychology, has launched a landmark toolkit to expand DClinPsy addiction placements across England. It gives Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and healthcare providers practical, structured guidance to build high-quality placement opportunities for Doctorate in Clinical Psychology trainees. Addiction affects nearly half of all UK adults, yet access to psychologically informed care remains a serious challenge. This resource directly addresses that gap.

Why DClinPsy Addiction Placements Matter Now

A 10-year strategic plan for the drug and alcohol treatment and recovery workforce (2024 to 2034) sets the backdrop here. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID), the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), and NHS England published it jointly. The strategy calls on service providers to forge stronger links with HEIs, support psychologists in offering clinical placements, and recruit with greater consideration for professional diversity and skill.

Addiction services operate differently from mainstream NHS healthcare. Local authorities commission community drug and alcohol treatment services in England. Some areas run on a single-provider model. Others draw on multiple organisations delivering complementary strands of care. Over 80% of community drug and alcohol treatment services come from third sector organisations. NHS providers, typically mental health trusts, cover around 10%.

That means DClinPsy addiction placements reach well beyond NHS settings. Third sector providers alone offer trainees a broad, varied range of clinical environments to develop meaningful skills.

What the Toolkit Covers

The Faculty of Addictions developed the toolkit with contributions from colleagues in the Association of Clinical Psychologists. The team interviewed clinical psychology trainees, qualified clinical psychologists, supervisors, and heads of therapies. They also brought in perspectives from people with lived experience of addiction. That grounding ensures the guidance reflects clinical reality rather than theory alone.

The toolkit addresses two distinct sets of competencies. The first covers the core clinical competencies the British Psychological Society requires of all DClinPsy trainees. These span psychological assessment, formulation, intervention, evaluation, research, and professional skills. Trainees can meet each of these within addiction placements, through approaches such as motivational interviewing, risk and safety planning, and trauma-informed work with co-occurring mental health difficulties.

The second set covers specialist addiction competencies. King’s College London’s DClinPsy programme originally developed the framework. Practitioners then enriched it through interviews. Skills in this set include harm reduction advice, cognitive-behavioural approaches to relapse prevention, working with families and significant others, multi-agency collaboration, and equality, diversity and inclusion within addiction contexts.

The toolkit also provides a five-step guide to setting up placements. It walks through identifying local authority-commissioned services, conducting site visits, contracting, and ongoing placement management. Supervisors get detailed advice on preparing trainees before the placement starts and managing them once it begins. Courses and services also receive guidance on building more sustainable, collaborative relationships over time.

Addiction Placements Suitable From Year One

Training programmes may be reassured to know that addiction placements work well even for first-year trainees. Core therapeutic skills transfer readily across clinical settings. The multidisciplinary team structure in addiction services gives less experienced practitioners strong support. Many trainees also bring relevant pre-training backgrounds in homelessness services, substance use, or complex needs work.

Trainees typically manage six to eight pieces of clinical work over a three-day placement pattern. Workload usually spreads across individual and group interventions, teaching sessions, research or evaluation work, and routine MDT meetings. The range of available settings, from community addiction services to day programmes, inpatient units, and specialist teams, also opens pathways toward model accreditations in CBT, EMDR, and systemic and family therapy.

Voices From the Sector

Tim Meynen, one of the toolkit’s authors, highlighted what addiction settings uniquely offer trainees. “Addiction services offer trainees a unique opportunity to work at the interface of mental health and substance use, gaining experience with individuals whose needs often span multiple domains of care,” he said.

He added that the toolkit aims to help services and training programmes build meaningful, sustainable placement opportunities. “Our hope is that it will contribute to a growing workforce, equipped to meet the psychological needs of people affected by substance use and related difficulties.”

Luke Mitcheson, National Clinical Advisor at OHID, made the public health case clearly. “Addiction is a major public health issue, and people experiencing substance use and gambling harms frequently face significant barriers to accessing timely, psychologically informed care. Clinical psychology and other psychological professions have a critical role to play in meeting this need.”

NHS England published a broader capability framework for the drug and alcohol treatment and recovery workforce in March 2025. The toolkit maps directly onto it, giving training courses and addiction service providers a practical route to build a more competent, compassionate workforce together.

Source: dbrecoveryresources