ASD Healthcare Services: Drug Impairment Training for Education Professionals (DITEP)

If you are a school nurse outside of the Anchorage School District and are interested in attending this DITEP training, please contact Barb Pennington or Kathy Easley for a possible travel scholarship.

ASD HEALTHCARE SERVICES: Drug Impairment Training for Education Professionals (DITEP), 5/12/2021 and 5/19/2021, 8:00 am-4:30 pm @ ASD Board Room. Nurses must attend both days to obtain CEU. This is a face-to-face training provided by Investigator Steve Dunn, Major Collision Investigation. 

Who is eligible to attend? Priority 1: ASD Secondary School’s including Secondary Alternative schools.

Drug Impairment Training for Educational Professionals (DITEP) is derived from the national Drug Evaluation and Classification (DEC) Program, a successful law enforcement procedure used to detect drug and alcohol impaired drivers. The methods employed in this training are based on medical and scientific facts. The information is supported by research conducted in both laboratory and field studies. The DEC program was validated in laboratory by studies conducted at the Johns Hopkins University, and in the field by the Southern California Research Institute. Although DITEP is not intended to qualify participants as Drug Recognition Experts (DRE's), it is intended to make participants competent and confident in evaluating and documenting those individuals suspected of abusing drugs in the school setting. The training will enable trained staff to determine first of all, whether or not the student is impaired. If it is determined that there is impairment, whether the impairment is due to a medical problem or is drug related. Finally, if the impairment is drug related, through proven diagnostic procedures, what category or categories of drugs that are likely causing the observed impairment. By providing training to school officials and health care professionals, it is anticipated that drug usage in schools employing an aggressive evaluation and detection program will decline. Consequently, not only will the disruption caused by individuals abusing drugs be decreased, but also the incidence of those individuals driving to and from schools while impaired by either alcohol or drugs will also be greatly reduced, making our communities and schools a safer place for all.