The Distance Education Program of the Addiction Technology Transfer Center of New England (ATTC-NE), funded by Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, was chartered in order to extend the reach of addictions education to the World Wide Web and beyond.

The primary purpose of this program is to provide addiction specialists and other mental health professionals, as well as other interested persons throughout the world with convenient, easy to access "cyber" classrooms in which they can be kept abreast with the latest advances in addiction treatment and prevention.

Coordinated through Brown University's Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, this unique learning initiative first began in March of 1997 and has continued to flourish ever since. By selecting instructors who are at the top of their field, or who have made major contributions to their communities, or to the body of addictions knowledge, this program has provided quality training to participants and organizations throughout the world.

In addition to quality education and consumer satisfaction, it has been of significant importance to the staff at the ATTC-NE to effect systems change at the treatment facility level through the provision of science based best practices treatment methods and approaches. As a recent one-year follow-up study of online participants conducted by the ATTC-NE indicated, this web-based program is effecting change at the treatment level (Hagberg, Love, Bryant, & Storti, 1999). An impressive 84% of the respondents incorporated their online training into their practices with the same number respondinG that they had shared the ATTC-NE training material with fellow clinicians. Fifty two percent indicated that they had actually changed their therapeutic approach as a result of their online training experience. When asked if they would use the program for future trainings needs, 98% of all respondents indicated that they would.

To date, this pioneering distance learning initiative has provided training to participants from all fifty US States (as well Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico), and nearly thirty foreign countries on six continents. As the demand for convenient, cost effective addiction education increases, the ATTC-NE will strive to be at the forefront, using cutting edge technology, consumer feedback, and follow-up evaluation to shape the future of addiction technology transfer.