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🧠 Counselling & Coaching  ·  Advanced

Certified Addiction and Substance Abuse Counsellor

Online Certification  ·  11 Weeks  ·  Globally Recognised  ·  (CADD)

✅ 2026 Edition 🎓 CPD Accredited 🌍 100+ Countries 📜 Digital + Physical Certificate 100% Online
Executive Summary

Certified Addiction and Substance Abuse Counsellor

Designed for today’s high-impact professionals, the Certified Addiction and Substance Abuse Counsellor (CADD) delivers a rigorous Advanced-level curriculum that equips participants with the knowledge, tools and frameworks needed to excel in counselling, coaching and psychological wellbeing.

This 11 Weeks programme is structured around recognised counselling, coaching and ethical practice standards, ensuring every graduate applies internationally validated methods to real-world challenges.

GLI’s CADD holders are recognised by leading organisations across Africa, the Gulf, Europe and the Americas as qualified, results-driven professionals. Whether you are advancing your current career or transitioning into new responsibilities, this certification provides the competitive edge you need in 2026 and beyond.

Programme Overview

Certification at a Glance

Certification
Certified Addiction and Substance Abuse Counsellor
Acronym
CADD
Category
Counselling & Coaching
Level
Advanced
Duration
11 Weeks
Delivery Mode
100% Online
Assessment
Online Examination
Certificate
Digital + Physical
CPD Eligibility
CPD Accredited
Alumni Benefits
GLI Network Access
Self-Paced
USD 399
Live Virtual
USD 599
Target Audience

Who Should Enrol?

  • Counsellors and Therapists
  • Coaches and Wellbeing Practitioners
  • Social and Community Workers
  • Helping-Profession Practitioners
Programme Inclusions

Everything Included in Your Enrolment

  • All study materials and study guide
  • Access to GLI online learning portal
  • Online examination and assessment
  • Digital certificate and digital badge
  • Physical certificate (shipped to you)
  • CPD credits for professional bodies
  • GLI alumni network membership
  • Facilitator and tutor support
  • Resource downloads and reference library
  • Automatic enrolment confirmation
Certification Benefits

Why This Certification Matters for Your Career

Career Advancement
Accelerate your career towards senior counselling, clinical and practice-leadership roles
Professional Recognition
Credential aligned with recognised counselling, coaching and ethical practice standards
Leadership Capability
Develop the strategic and operational skills to lead complex counselling functions
Organisational Impact
Design and implement counselling systems that drive performance and measurable results
Compliance Readiness
Master the standards, compliance and ethical governance central to counselling
Global Employability
Qualify for counselling roles across clinics, NGOs, schools, community organisations and private practice worldwide
Competency Framework

Core Competencies You Will Develop

✦Addiction and Substance Use Disorders
✦Addiction Screening and Case Formulation
✦Relapse Prevention Counselling
✦Individual Addiction Counselling
✦Co-Occurring Mental Health Challenges
✦Addiction Case Management
Course Curriculum

Programme Modules

The full programme, module by module.

Core CurriculumModules 1–20 · specific to Certified Addiction and Substance Abuse Counsellor · module 20 is the capstone
1
Foundations of Addiction Counselling
History and scope of counselling and coaching · Counselling micro-skills: reflecting, paraphrasing and summarising · Career counselling and guidance as a therapeutic practice · Addiction and substance use
2
Addiction and Substance Use Disorders
Youth and adolescent substance use · The therapeutic alliance and rapport · Clinical supervision and reflective practice · Measuring therapeutic outcomes
3
Neuropsychology of Addictive Behaviour
Psychoeducation groups: structured teaching that changes behaviour · Managing health workers and clinical teams · Professional roles, boundaries and settings · Ethical principles and codes of practice
4
Substance Use Assessment
Organisational maturity, assessment and improvement programmes · Security assessment, vulnerability management and remediation · Culturally responsive practice: working with difference rather than around it · Experiential and body-based practice in the session
5
Addiction Screening and Case Formulation
Assessment and formulation: understanding before intervening · Managing emotions in session · Ending sessions and reviews · Intake and initial assessment
6
Motivational Interviewing for Addiction
Investigative interviewing: an ethical, evidence-based approach · Structured interviewing and selection method · Motivational interviewing spirit and skills · Motivational interviewing
7
Readiness for Change
Transformational leadership and organisational renewal · Change talk and readiness · Stages of change and readiness · Diagnosing organisational readiness for change
8
Relapse Prevention Counselling
Why practices lapse: obstacles, overcommitment and recovery · Ending therapy well: termination, relapse planning and discharge · Relapse prevention and maintenance · Community-based protection and prevention
9
Craving and Trigger Management
Participatory rural appraisal and needs assessment · Personalisation and relationship building · Service maturity assessment · Data privacy and consent
10
Recovery Planning
Resilience: recovery, adaptability and sustainable performance · Service recovery: complaints, resolution and what restores trust · Control environment and risk assessment · Demand planning, forecasting and the distortion of signals
11
Individual Addiction Counselling
Supervision, ethics and the coach’s own development · Working with resistance, ambivalence and stuck clients · Ethics, supervision and reflective practice · Community entry, mapping and building the relationship
12
Group Addiction Counselling
Supervision, reflective practice and practitioner sustainability · Risk assessment and safeguarding in practice · Trauma-informed delivery and its limits · Practitioner wellbeing and vicarious trauma
13
Family Systems and Addiction
Assessment design and methods · Formative and summative assessment · Competency-based assessment · Accreditation and certification
14
Co-Occurring Mental Health Challenges
Managing service delivery in health, education and technical settings · Co-occurring mental health · Community mental health and outreach · Preventive and public mental health
15
Harm Reduction Approaches
Harm reduction principles · Market attractiveness and country assessment · Health records: confidentiality, accuracy and access · Ethics, confidentiality and professional conduct in HR
16
Recovery Support Networks
Risk assessment methodology and matrices · Dynamic and site-specific risk assessment · Exposure assessment and monitoring · Fire risk assessment
17
Addiction Case Management
Supervision: daily oversight, standards and correction · Is training the right intervention? · Assessment design, validity and fairness · Curriculum architecture and accreditation
18
Treatment Referral and Continuity of Care
Working within competence: scope, referral and continuity of care · Working across disciplines: referral, shared care and the client in the middle · Supplier relationship management and segmentation · Continuity, disruption and organisational resilience
19
Addiction Counselling Outcomes
Vulnerability assessment and surveys · Intelligence-led risk assessment · Research ethics in practice: consent, harm and the researcher’s obligations · Supervision, wellbeing and sustaining protective practice
20
Substance Abuse Counselling Practicum
Quality assurance, standards and accreditation in training · Solvency, capital and prudential supervision · Ration formulation and least-cost feeding · Health records, data and confidentiality
Professional ElectivesModules 21–30 · common to all GLI certifications · broaden your professional range
21
Strategic Communication and Executive Presentation
Vision, purpose and translating direction into work · Audience-centred communication and message structure · Executive leadership: the board interface and enterprise stewardship · Persuasive structure: framing, evidence and the ask
22
Leadership and Team Effectiveness
Leadership identity, style and the limits of style · Leadership assessment, feedback and continuous self-review · Leadership versus management and when each is needed · Situational and adaptive leadership
23
Analytical Thinking and Evidence-Based Reasoning
Creativity and critical-thinking development · Analytical techniques and bias · Evidence-based improvement · Problem framing: symptoms, definition and scope
24
Professional Decision-Making
Managerial decision-making, bias and decision rights · Escalation and decision-making · Decision support: briefs, options and judgement under pressure · Decision frameworks: criteria, weighting and trade-offs
25
Negotiation, Influence and Stakeholder Management
Negotiation preparation: interests, options and the walk-away · Power, followership and organisational politics · Negotiation: preparation, interests and value creation · Concessions, anchoring and the shape of a bargain
26
Project and Execution Management
Proposals, bids and the business case · Project roles and the project manager · Developing the project business case · Planning, scheduling and personal workflow systems
27
Financial Literacy for Professionals
Financial reporting standards and their application · Financial management for the operating manager · Liquidity, funding and balance sheet management · Management accounting: costing, budgeting and decision support
28
Digital Skills, AI and Technology for Professionals
Digital workplace, collaboration and user support · Productivity, collaboration and workflow tools · Tools for interaction and collaboration · Working with data: quality, interpretation and honest presentation
29
Ethics, Governance and Professional Accountability
Ethical leadership: integrity, tolerated behaviour and moral courage · Ethics, conduct and speaking up · Business development risk, ethics and integrity · AI for managers: adoption, oversight and governance
30
Personal Effectiveness, Productivity and Career Growth
Emotional competence: awareness, regulation and expression · Self-awareness, strengths and the accuracy of self-image · Emotional intelligence and self-regulation · Priority: outcomes, importance and the urgency trap

Every module opens in the learning portal with its full lesson set, worked examples, further reading and video masterclasses. 30 modules · 150 lessons.

Learning Outcomes

What You Will Achieve

  • Addiction and Substance Use Disorders — applied to your own work
  • Neuropsychology of Addictive Behaviour — applied to your own work
  • Substance Use Assessment — applied to your own work
  • Addiction Screening and Case Formulation — applied to your own work
  • Motivational Interviewing for Addiction — applied to your own work
  • Readiness for Change — applied to your own work
Our Position

Professional Certifications: Tools for the Continuing Professional Journey

Professional certifications equip, strengthen and continuously tool professionals throughout their current professional journey and within their existing fields of practice. They provide structured opportunities to deepen knowledge, develop specialised competencies, refresh existing capabilities, adopt contemporary practices, and apply practical tools, frameworks and techniques to real-world professional challenges.

01

Tooling, Not Onboarding

Professional certifications are professional tooling and development instruments, not onboarding instruments. They are particularly valuable to professionals who are already working in a field, entering it through an established professional pathway, advancing within it, transitioning across it or specialising in it — and who wish to strengthen their professional capability and effectiveness.

02

Complementary, Never a Substitute

A professional certification does not replace an academic qualification, professional degree, statutory licence, practising certificate, regulatory approval or any other qualification legally required to practise a profession. Where a profession or jurisdiction establishes specific academic, licensing or regulatory requirements, those requirements remain fully applicable.

03

Built for Lifelong Relevance

A professional certification is a complementary professional credential that supports continuing professional development, competence enhancement, specialisation, career progression, professional mobility and lifelong learning. It adds practical professional tooling to an individual’s existing academic and professional foundation, helping professionals remain relevant, capable and effective as their professions, organisations and operating environments evolve.

Enrolment Process

How to Get Certified

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Step 3: Study in the GLI Learning Portal
Work through 30 structured modules and 150 lessons at your own pace, with downloadable resources and expert-designed content — all inside the LMS.
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Step 4: Pass, Get Certified & Verified
Sit your final examination online, earn your certificate instantly, and receive a globally verifiable Certificate ID — plus GLI Alumni Network access.
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Frequently Asked Questions

Common Questions

What is the CADD certification?

The Certified Addiction and Substance Abuse Counsellor is a professional certification awarded by the Global Leadership Institute. It covers 20 core modules specific to Addiction and Substance Abuse Counsellor, culminating in the capstone “Substance Abuse Counselling Practicum”, plus 10 professional elective modules common to all GLI certifications. Candidates study through the online portal, submit the capstone project and sit a final examination; those who pass receive a verifiable certificate carrying a unique certificate ID.

Who should enrol in the CADD?

This certification is ideal for Counsellors and Therapists, Coaches and Wellbeing Practitioners, Social and Community Workers and Helping-Profession Practitioners, and other professionals seeking to formalise their expertise in counselling, coaching and psychological wellbeing with a globally recognised credential.

How long does the CADD certification take to complete?

The programme is structured over 11 Weeks and offers flexible learning modes. Self-paced learners can progress at their own schedule, while live virtual participants follow a structured cohort schedule with facilitator-led sessions.

Is the CADD internationally recognised?

Yes. GLI certifications are recognised across 100+ countries and are aligned with recognised counselling, coaching and ethical practice standards. Graduates receive a digital certificate, a physical certificate and CPD credits recognised by employers worldwide.

What is the cost of the CADD certification?

The Certified Addiction and Substance Abuse Counsellor is offered in two formats: Self-Paced at USD 399 and Live Virtual at USD 599. Corporate group rates are available for organisations enrolling 5 or more participants. Contact GLI for a bespoke corporate training quotation.

What does the CADD certification include?

Enrolment includes all study materials and study guides, access to GLI's online learning portal, online examination, digital certificate and badge, physical certificate (posted), CPD credits, GLI alumni network membership, and ongoing facilitator support.

What is the assessment format for the CADD?

The Certified Addiction and Substance Abuse Counsellor is assessed through an online examination consisting of multiple-choice questions, case study analysis, and practical application assignments. The assessment is designed to evaluate real-world competency, not just theoretical recall.

What CPD credits do I earn from the CADD?

The Certified Addiction and Substance Abuse Counsellor carries Continuing Professional Development (CPD) credits, which can be applied towards professional body requirements including recognised international professional associations.

Can I study the CADD while working full-time?

Absolutely. The self-paced option is designed for busy working professionals and allows you to study when and where it suits you. Live virtual sessions are typically scheduled in the evenings or on weekends to accommodate professional commitments.

What career outcomes can I expect from the CADD?

Graduates progress towards senior counselling, clinical and practice-leadership roles. The CADD strengthens your expertise in counselling, coaching and psychological wellbeing and positions you for advancement across clinics, NGOs, schools, community organisations and private practice.

Graduate Voices

What Our Alumni Say

“

The curriculum was directly applicable to my daily work. I immediately applied what I learned and saw results within weeks of completing the programme.

Clinical Lead
Private Sector
“

GLI's certification is the most practical professional programme I have attended. The international frameworks gave me credibility with my employer and clients.

Senior Counsellor
NGO Sector
“

I earned my CADD while working full-time. The self-paced format made it possible, and the quality of the content is genuinely world-class.

Wellbeing Programme Manager
Government
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