Behavioral Health and Quitting Smoking

Chapter 75: Wisconsin Requires Behavioral Health Centers to Have a Plan for Tobacco Treatment

• Wisconsin behavioral health providers who treat substance use disorders are required by October 2022 to formulate plans to assess and treat tobacco use and have a policy about smoke-free environments. It’s due to the State of Wisconsin’s revised Administrative Code Chapter 75. Read more

Wisconsin Incorporating Tobacco Treatment into Certification Training for Peer Specialists

• The state of Wisconsin Department of Health Services is working to incorporate tobacco treatment into the training of peer specialists as they work to become certified. Specifically, it is using a report created by UW-CTRI in collaboration with two certified peer specialists. Read more

We Hear You

• We understand you’re overwhelmed, time is precious, and clients vary in confidence and readiness to quit.
• Your peers are successfully treating tobacco use in a reasonable amount of time, and clients are quitting.
• This site is dedicated to helping healthcare providers assist their behavioral-health patients with quitting smoking, chewing or vaping tobacco.
• Hear from your peers below:

• How do they do it? Here you’ll find strategies and tips to help your patients succeed, straight from the therapists, administrators, and clients who have done it.
• You’ll learn to treat tobacco use without taking too much of your time. In fact, studies show quitting smoking helps with other challenges you are treating every day. It’s a force multiplier.
  • More than 260 Health Professionals Take New Online Course on the ‘Bucket Approach’
  • So don’t get left behind – get your FREE CE credit and help your patients quit. It will change their lives.

Evidence Base for Helping Your Patients Quit Tobacco

• A meta-analysis in the journal Addiction found people with mental illness are motivated to quit smoking. In fact, more than half of people with behavioral-health diagnoses contemplated quitting within the last six months. (Siru et al, Addiction, May 2009)
• More behavioral health patients will die from tobacco use than from their behavioral health issues–and they’ll die from tobacco sooner. It’s time to take action

Sources: McClave et al., AJPH, 2010 and *Weinberger, et. al., ACER, 2018.

• “I challenge all deliveries of care: CSPs, residential, private psychotherapy, and those programs who treat the most vulnerable, who may want to focus on other issues, to think about how they can address tobacco and to adopt a zero-tolerance policy.” ~William Fry, Director, Columbia St. Mary’s Behavioral Health
  • What’s YOUR opinion? Click here to share

A Time to Lead

• Explore A TIME TO LEAD – Second Edition, the most compelling case for integrating tobacco treatment in our behavioral health programs, presented by some of America’s leading tobacco addiction and mental health experts.
• The WiNTiP Decade: What the Wisconsin Nicotine Treatment Integration Project (WiNTiP) has accomplished in its first 10 years, and what challenges remain to help behavioral health patients quit smoking, chewing, and vaping.
• Webinar: Recovery-Oriented Tobacco Interventions in Addiction Services
  • Slides
• It’s all part of the Wisconsin Nicotine Treatment Integration Project (WiNTiP).