We recently celebrated Scarlett Baker’s 25-year work anniversary. Scarlett is The SASSI Institute’s Director of Training Services, Dissemination & Planning. This milestone marks another year of her dedication, achievements, and growth in her career. We are honored to have her as an essential part of our team.
This SASSI-4 profile is an excellent example of why the comprehensive assessment is a crucial part of the evaluation process.
This 33-year-old male completed the FVA/FVOD side of the questionnaire for his whole lifetime.
His RAP is 0 as is his Prescription Drug Scale.
His profile graphs most of his scores within the norm, between the 15th and 85th percentiles. The one standout is the SAT score of 0. That score indicates someone who is hypersensitive to what others think about him and may harbor feelings of resentment coming across as having a chip on his shoulder. Although the DEF score of 7 is not quite high enough to trigger looking at the possibility of SASSI missing individuals with a substance use disorder, it is significantly above average so there may be a “hint” of him exhibiting defensiveness.
Based on the face of it and on the SASSI alone, he comes up with a Low Probability of a Substance Disorder.
So, what is missing? The information gathered from the rest of his evaluation.
This individual has a history of 3 DUI’s – one in 2013, 2020 and the last in 2023.
As you can see, he does not indicate in his FVA or SYM any issues with alcohol or negative consequences of his usage. From his perspective, he has not had negative consequences. It could be that what he was required to do historically was minimal i.e. an alcohol education class. As these offenses are spread over 10 years, it may mean that he has a problem with drinking and driving. What is his current usage? Does he have a diagnosable disorder based on the DSM-5? Knowing about his extensive history requires the Clinician to dig deeper into this client’s use history and question his perspectives.
A useful tool we offer for both individual administration and for alcohol-related education and treatment interventions is the BADDS – Behaviors & Attitudes Drinking and Driving Scale.
It identifies drinking and driving and riding behaviors, history of impaired driving, the likelihood of riding or driving with an impaired driver, rationalizations for drinking and driving and intervention effectiveness.
The BADDS can be used in Driver’s education classes, Impaired driving prevention, DUI courts and DUI programs, Colleges and Universities and Counseling and treatment programs.
The BADDS can be used as a pre-test or be re-administered to measure behavioral and/or attitudinal change in multiple intervals. The post-test can also assess overall program effectiveness.
The BADDS is available in a paper and pencil version only for those 18 years or older with a third grade reading level and takes about 15 minutes to administer. We do offer on-demand webinar training. For more information go to www.thebadds.com.
Did you know that SASSI screening tools are available for use and are obtainable through our international distributors? If you are in, or have friends/colleagues in the UK, Australia, or Greece, please take note of our licensed distributors there for affordable access to SASSI screening tools.
In the UK, the paper & pencil version of the adult SASSI-4 and adolescent SASSI-A3 is available through SASSI Direct Ltd. For ordering information please email sassi@sassidirect.co.uk.
In Australia, the paper & pencil version of the adult SASSI-4 and adolescent SASSI-A3 is available through The Help Now Group. Since purchasing the web-based version of the SASSI through SASSI Online can be challenging for our Australian colleagues due to issues with credit card processing, access and administrations of the web-based version can also be purchased through The Help Now Group. For ordering information please email rodney@thehelpnow.org.
In Greece, a reliable and validated version of the translated adult SASSI-3 in Greek is available through Panagiota Kontoleon. For ordering information please email panagiota@kontoleon.com.gr.
We are pleased that these distributors are working with us to promote screening for those individuals suffering from substance use-related issues and disorders.
We are excited to bring you a new series covering common questions on various topics specific to our processes and policies. In this edition of SASSI FAQs we take a quick look at Customer Identifiers or commonly referred to at SASSI as the Customer ID.
All accounts at The SASSI Institute are assigned a Customer ID. That account identifier consists of six characters, with the first two being letters representing the State (US) Province (CA) and ZZ for all other countries. The other four characters can be letters or numbers, but are consistent with the Organization’s name, or the last name of the clinician if the account represents a private practice. Our online shopping cart requires the Customer ID to check-out for paper products. If you do not know your Customer ID, or are a new customer, you can fill out the qualification form at www.sassi.com/qualify to receive a temporary ID so your order can be processed. For SASSI Online customers the Customer ID is found on the My Account tab, and most frequently used during technical support situations, or when an order is placed for the online account over the phone. When purchasing digital products, that form is part of the registration process at www.sassionline.com.
If you ever have any questions about your account, please reach out to our Customer Service Team! They are happy to help you navigate the qualification form and/or registration process. They can be reached at 800.726.0526 option 1 or via email at sassi@sassi.com.
We wanted to take this opportunity to introduce our new Clinical Director, Mr. David Helton, LMSW, LCDC. David has worked in the behavioral health field in Texas for over 35 years as a clinician, a manager, division director, trainer, an evaluator, a program developer, and a grant writer/reviewer. In addition to training on the SASSI for over 30 years, David has been a member of the SASSI Clinical Team for the last several years assisting on the clinical helpline. David is a passionate and caring individual that brings a vast wealth of understanding of the initiates, correlates and consequences of substance use disorder. But in addition; he is a marvelous communicator able to disseminate complex theoretical paradigms into readily understandable language, which simultaneously assists providers with the sometimes-nuanced interpretations of SASSI clinical results.
Please join us at The SASSI Institute in welcoming David in taking on his new role. We are thrilled to have him continuing collaborations with the SASSI team.
Our long-time Clinical Director, Kristin S. Kimmell, LCSW, LCAC is officially retired as of May 2.
Kristin started out as a Clinical Consultant in 2004 and was promoted to Clinical Director in 2011. During that time, she has helped the company expand their outreach, communication, dissemination, but most importantly our clinical service provision. In addition to working for The SASSI Institute, she also maintained a private clinical practice specializing in addiction services. She has been committed to the Institute’s overall mission of helping people who suffer from substance use problems and the professionals who serve them. The favorite part of her job was talking to clinicians who called the clinical helpline from all parts of the country and Canada.
We want to thank her for her dedicated service and best wishes in the next part of her life’s journey.
SASSI Online is our web-based platform that supports the digital administration of the Adult SASSI-4, Adolescent SASSI-A3, and Spanish SASSI.
In this edition of SASSI Online Tips and Tricks we highlight the steps to view a client’s completed SASSI questionnaire results. When a client completes the questionnaire, responses are sent to the scoring server for immediate results. You will receive an email notification that the questionnaire is complete, with instructions on how to view the report from the Account Dashboard. For security reasons, report results are not sent via email.
To view the report and questionnaire responses you must be logged in to your dashboard, and locate the client on your My Clients tab. To view the report or questionnaire responses for your client, click on their Client ID. In the window, select what you would like to view from the following options: View Report or View Questionnaire.
The SASSI report includes a graph of the client’s scale scores, the outcome of the decision rules based on the client’s responses, and a narrative report on the client’s profile. The completed questionnaire contains all questions asked, the client’s responses, and the scale scores.
Sample SASSI Online Reports are available here:
If you are not currently using SASSI Online and would like to experience the features of the digital platform, create an account at www.sassionline.com. If you already have an account, let us know if you have any suggestions for our next edition of SASSI Online Tips and Tricks. As a bonus for reading this blog post to the end, reach out to us at blog@sassi.com, with the code phrase: Report Results, to request two free SASSI Online administrations!
We wanted to welcome you to join us for a free one-hour online SASSI Q&A session hosted by our Clinical Director, Kristin Kimmell, LCSW, LCAC. This will be our last free Q&A session until Summer.
The Q&A is scheduled from Noon-1pm ET on: April 16th. You can save your spot by clicking here. We welcome you to share profiles to discuss with the group by sending them (de-identified) via email any time prior to the session to scarlett@sassi.com. These profiles will help others learn about the SASSI and offer insight into the various profile configurations.
Note: Q&A sessions do not provide CEUs and are not a substitute for SASSI Training.
Happy Spring! Our certified SASSI trainers have been busy doing live in-person training this year and would like to hear from you about the need in your local area for this service. Please visit the training page on our website to view a list of currently scheduled workshops at www.sassi.com/sassi-training. If nothing is scheduled in your area, please reach out directly to the trainer so they know there is interest in their area, and they can plan accordingly. They are also happy to schedule private in-person training for your agency/organization.
Reminder: Our clinical team is available M-F to answer questions about the administration, scoring, and interpretation of our instruments at 800.726.0526 option 2. This is a free service, and we encourage you to call often.
SASSI Online is our web-based platform that supports the digital administration of the Adult SASSI-4, Adolescent SASSI-A3, and Spanish SASSI. It provides a report with interpretive paragraphs outlining the decision rules and results from client responses.
In this edition of SASSI Online Tips and Tricks we highlight the Distribution Group feature available on the Purchasing & Distribution Tab of the Purchaser’s Account Dashboard. Distribution Groups can only be created and managed by the user that holds the Purchaser role on the account for the organization. Visit the My Account tab to find out who the Purchaser is for your organization’s account.
Distribution Groups are for organizations that have more than one counselor registered to administer questionnaires. They allow for the Purchaser to distribute a purchased quantity of questionnaires among registered counselors or groups within an organization. A distribution group can be named for an actual group (e.g., intake evaluations) or individual counselors (e.g., Carlisle) within an organization.
To create a new Distribution Group, Click the “Purchasing & Distribution” tab and then click the “Manage Distribution Groups” button. Then click on the “Create New Distribution Group” button and enter the name for your new distribution group, then click submit. Once a Distribution Group is created you will need to add questionnaires and counselors to the group. Click the respective buttons on the newly created group to complete this task. Continued management is required as counselors are added to the account and new questionnaires are purchased.
If your organization does not have a need to limit access to purchased questionnaires because all registered counselors will be sharing available questionnaires, then there is no need to create a Distribution Group. All SASSI Online accounts have a Default Distribution Group that all registered counselors and purchased questionnaires are automatically added to.
If you are not currently using SASSI Online and would like to experience the features of the digital platform, create an account at www.sassionline.com. If you already have an account, let us know if you have any suggestions for our next edition of SASSI Online Tips and Tricks. As a bonus for reading this blog post to the end, reach out to us at blog@sassi.com, with the code phrase: Distribution Group, to request two free SASSI Online administrations!
