Affiliation with substance using peers is one of the strongest predictors of adolescent alcohol use. This association is typically interpreted causally: peers who drink incite their friends to drink. This association may be complicated by uncontrolled genetic and environmental confounds because teens with familial predispositions for adolescent…

A study to examine the association between childhood separation anxiety disorder (SAD) and the risk of the development of psychopathology during young adulthood was conducted. Results showed that SAD contributed to the risk for the development of internalizing disorders, which are panic and depression, but decreased the risk for externalizing…

Two studies were conducted to provide the first empirical examination of the factor structure of a revised version of the clinically derived Structured Interview for Disorders of Extreme Stress, a structured interview designed to assess associated features of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) thought to be related to early onset, interpersonal,…

This study evaluated the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment training (ACT) for increasing drug and alcohol counselors' willingness to use evidence-based agonist and antagonist pharmacotherapy. Fifty-nine drug and alcohol counselors were randomly assigned to either a 1-day ACT workshop or a 1-day educational control workshop. Both groups…

President Clinton signed the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) of 1997, Public Law 105-89 105th Congress, 1st session on November 19, 1997. The ambitious new law aimed to reaffirm the focus on child safety in case decision making and to ensure that children did not languish and grow up in foster care but instead were connected with permanent…

The development of low cost and practical information and communication technologies (ICT) has led to increased pressure on social workers and other human service providers to insure their clients are not digitally disenfranchised. In fact, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Standards for…

Athletes can be involved as role models and leaders--in collaboration with coaches and other staff--to enhance life skills and prevent substance use among their peers. "Drugs in Sport" is a peer education program involving collegiate athletes visiting middle schools to speak with school children. This article discusses the structure of the Drugs…

While the need for holistic health and social service responses is increasingly being articulated in Australia, the discussion is not always matched by improvements in service delivery. This project looked at one service setting where youth workers were encouraged to take a holistic approach to their clients' often-complex needs. Interviews with…

The child welfare and substance abuse systems are integrally linked through the children and families they both serve. There is a dearth of knowledge, however, on how children who have experienced foster care fare when they are treated for substance abuse issues as adults. This article presents an exploratory study using the Alcohol and Drug…

We investigated the link between child maltreatment, including child sexual assault (CSA) and child physical assault (CPA), and addiction-related symptomatology in a subsample of adolescents from the National Survey of Adolescents, all of whom met DSM-IV criteria for substance abuse or dependence (N = 281). More than 60% of the sample reported a…

Many youths in juvenile justice are in need of substance use services, yet referral to services is often inadequate. This study examines the ecological factors related to substance use service referrals made through Tennessee's juvenile courts. A series of hierarchical binomial logistic models indicated that individual-level factors accounted for…

The mediators of favorable multisystemic therapy (MST) outcomes achieved at 12 months postrecruitment were examined within the context of a randomized effectiveness trial with 127 juvenile sexual offenders and their caregivers. Outcome measures assessed youth delinquency, substance use, externalizing symptoms, and deviant sexual interest/risk…

Prevalence and validation studies rely on imperfect reference standard (RS) diagnostic instruments that can bias prevalence and test characteristic estimates. The authors illustrate 2 methods to account for RS misclassification. Latent class analysis (LCA) combines information from multiple imperfect measures of an unmeasurable latent condition to…

Objectives: This study examined predictive associations of substance abuse with treatment engagement variables and partner abuse outcomes and explored the extent to which treatment engagement and ongoing alcohol consumption mediated the association between pretreatment substance use and posttreatment abuse. Method: Data were collected from 145…

Background: Poor recruitment and high attrition may invalidate results of research studies. This paper describes successful recruitment and retention strategies in a school-based substance use prevention trial and explores factors associated with intervention attendance and retention. Methods: A total of 384 parent-child dyads from 15 schools in…