What Reasonable Suspicion Training Should Include to Educate Supervisors

Reasonable suspicion training must include one hour of alcohol and one hour of other drug information. The goal is to help supervisors become aware of key substances of abuse and help them respond properly.

Note that one hour covers alcohol and one hour covers all of the other drugs of abuse the DOT wants mentioned. What does this tell you?

It obviously says that alcohol is the bigger problem in the workplace. And indeed it is.

One out of 11 drinkers is an alcoholic. (Personally, from my 40 years of observations in treatment and education, I think it is closer to 1 in 9.) The disease can continue for decades before it is noticed as productivity declines or increased absenteeism, among many other behavioral, conduct, and attitude possibilities.

Drugs to include in your reasonable suspicion training are alcohol, stimulants, depressants, narcotics, hallucinogens & PCP, and Marijuana.

Although the following drugs are not required education, I like delivering content to supervisors that will help them deal with problems at home with teenagers or problems at home with an alcoholic spouse or partner. And, the education I deliver in reasonable suspicion training is designed purposely to help supervisors self-diagnose their own alcoholism. Think about it. When you have a captured audience with people that could have a life threatening illness and not know it, what would you recommend? Enough said!

As you can see the alcohol education in products 154, 155 and 107 is that good. It helps learners self-diagnose.

There are no other drugs of abuse that supervisors must be educated in as required by the U.S. DOT in reasonable suspicion training, but we will discuss some drugs of abuse that you may want to mention because they have dramatic effects on the workplace, even though required education about their signs and symptoms is not mandated.

Ever hear of Salvia? No? We’ll talk about it. Spice and K2 also, which are big problems in many populations groups.

The U.S. DOT does require that supervisors receive certain parameters of information associated with the drugs of abuse outlined in the code of federal regulations. When discussing drugs of abuse, always include signs and symptoms of the drug being used, effects on the employee behavior, and dangers of use in the workplace.

Personally I like to also make a few comments about withdrawal – when an employee may be completely drug free, not under the influence, but dangerously incapacitated by symptoms withdrawal, then it is worth talking about.

The DOT does not require “behavioral signs and symptoms of withdrawal” but as you might guess, it is a good thing for supervisors to understand.

A new requirement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is for all federal employees to have education and awareness regarding several types of Opioids. These include:  Hydrocodone, Hydromorphone, Oxycodone, and Oxymorphone. 

These drugs are predominantly used for pain control, and there is not a lot that you need to say about them as required by the DOT. Awareness is the key. Include photos of these drugs in your presentation and simply mention their addictive nature and general use in pain managements.  You can find a PowerPoint Slide Video here and you are welcome to pause and download or save this ppt here.  

Beyond drugs of abuse it is important to have test questions for supervisors regarding drug and alcohol awareness. Also have handouts. Do not consume the time your supervisors are in training with 120 minutes of alcohol and drug awareness audio/visual content. Instead, break this time up. Make eight or nine handouts available in the course so they can read and review them in the future.

Regarding test questions, make them educational. Your test questions do not need to relate directly to the material in the presentation. I make my test questions true/false or multiple choice, and then offer a paragraph of educational content to explain to the learner. The questions for the most part do not related to the content. No need. Just help supervisors delve deeper into the content.