The project ‘Learning how to ask – evaluation of a training programme for practitioners in SUD services’ (PI: Martin Härter, Hamburg) aims at (1) adapting a standardized training programme for CAN inquiry and response (‘Learning how to ask’; Read, Hammersley, & Rudegeair, 2007) to the requirements of the German health care system; and (2) evaluating the effects of the programme on acceptance, knowledge about abuse in SUD clients, competence of abuse inquiry and the rate of abuse inquiry by practitioners in SUD services. The programme consists of one-day workshops and has been successfully used in New Zealand and in the UK (Read et al., 2007). The participants are provided with background information about forms and consequences of abuse, legal issues, and local possibilities for referral as well as guidelines for abuse inquiry and response. The effects of the training will be examined in a randomized-controlled trial among N = 120 practitioners of both gender in outpatient SUD counselling services in Hamburg. It is expected that the number of documented CAN inquiries is significantly higher in the six months post training in the intervention group as compared to the control group.