Addiction Counsellor Progression

ACCSA offers a structured addiction counsellor education pathway designed for individuals who want to build knowledge, competence, and professional credibility in the addiction counselling field.

Our counsellor progression pathway is divided into four levels of training: Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, and Specialist. Each level builds on the previous one, allowing students to develop from foundational addiction counselling knowledge through to more advanced and specialist addiction treatment topics.

This progression is suitable for aspiring addiction counsellors, recovery workers, treatment centre staff, volunteers, peer supporters, counsellors, social workers, mental health professionals, and those wanting to specialise further in addiction counselling.

To meet the requirements for IC&RC Tier 3 International Certification, candidates must complete the following:

· 300 CEU/CPD Hours of addiction-specific education (within the Eight Practice Domains)

· 3 years (6,000 hours) of supervised experience in the addiction field (can include volunteer, intern, or trainee hours)

ACP Complete Package

Out most cost effective package including all four levels of certification progression: Basic, Intermediate, Advanced and Specialist levels.

Reduced Combo Package

Our reduced combo package including the first three priority levels: Basic, Intermediate and Advanced.

BACC Basic Package

The pathway begins with the BACC Basic Addiction Counsellor Certificate Package, which introduces the foundations of addiction counselling, ethics, addiction theory, and counselling techniques.

IACC Intermediate Package

Students may then progress to the IACC Intermediate Addiction Counsellor Certificate Package, which expands into important therapeutic and clinical topics such as co-occurring disorders, crisis intervention, family counselling, behavioural addictions, and treatment approaches.

AACC Advanced Package

The AACC Advanced Addiction Counsellor Certificate Package then develops more advanced addiction counselling knowledge, including group therapy, case management, suicide risk, cultural competence, evidence-based counselling approaches, brief interventions, and relapse prevention.

SACC Specialist Package

The final level is the SACC Specialist Addiction Counsellor Certificate Package, which covers a wide range of specialist addiction treatment topics, including pharmacology, detoxification, clinical supervision, prevention and intervention, schools and workplace substance abuse, opioid treatment, outpatient treatment, trauma-informed care, adolescents, HIV/AIDS, neurobiology, and other specialised areas of practice.