This article provides a brief overview of CASAWORKS for Families (CWF), an innovative intervention designed to help substance-abusing parenting women on welfare. CWF was developed in response to the passage of welfare reform legislation in 1996. Factors that provided a background and context for the development of CWF are considered. The…

There is a need in the literature for research describing disposition severity differences between specific drug and alcohol law violations within the context of community characteristics. We conducted an exploratory study of prosecutor-reported juvenile disposition severity by both specific drug charge and community context using a national…

This brief discusses the signs and symptoms of alcohol and drug use and provides recommendations to assess substance use among youth in your program. It is not uncommon for adolescents to experiment with different substances such as alcohol or cigarettes, but this can lead to heavy and continued use, which is dangerous and may put their health at…

Underage drinking is a significant problem in the United States: Alcohol is the primary contributor to the leading causes of death among adolescents. As a result, communitywide strategies to prevent underage drinking are more important than ever. Such strategies depend on the involvement and education of adolescents, parents, law enforcement …

A growing body of literature demonstrates the co-occurrence of posttraumatic stress disorder and substance use disorder for females seeking substance abuse treatment. Nonetheless, relatively few trauma-specific treatments have been implemented or evaluated with this population. In this quasi-experimental study (N = 170), the Trauma Recovery and…

The Northwest Frontier Addiction Technology Transfer Center surveyed addiction educators, providers and policy makers in Northwest states and Hawaii to define teaching resources and barriers in the teaching of evidence-based practices for the preparation of addiction professionals. The top three teaching resource needs were example student…

The project described in this article addresses the therapeutic use of physical space in an outpatient counseling facility. It was theorized that an improved facility environment could be used as a practice tool when working with a vulnerable population. The authors undertook the project with limited time and finances. The process of the change…

Objective: Prior research shows that college athletes have higher rates of substance use, especially alcohol, than do college students who are not involved in athletics. To augment the literature, the author sought to determine which sports/teams are at the greatest risk for substance use. Participants: The author used data from the 1999 Harvard…

The validity of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) has been examined extensively in men, but its validity for women remains understudied. Specifically, the correlates of the general construct of psychopathy and its components as assessed by PCL-R total, factor, and facet scores have yet to be examined in depth. Based on previous research…

This article draws on data collected in group interviews with six young, urban Aboriginal mothers whose lives have included substance use and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome/ Fetal Alcohol Effects (hereafter FAS/FAE) to highlight the multiple and often contradictory ways in which disability as a constituent of social relations is defined in public policy…

We draw on three waves of the Fragile Families Study (N = 2,249) to examine family stability among a recent birth cohort of children. We find that children born to cohabiting versus married parents have over five times the risk of experiencing their parents' separation. This difference in union stability is greatest for White children, as compared…

The effectiveness of motivational enhancement therapy (MET) in comparison with counseling as usual (CAU) for increasing retention and reducing substance use was evaluated in a multisite randomized clinical trial. Participants were 461 outpatients treated by 31 therapists within 1 of 5 outpatient substance abuse programs. There were no retention…

This paper proposes a new bipartisan initiative to strengthen the effectiveness of U.S. social programs by focusing funds within each program on research-proven projects, practices, and strategies ("interventions"). The proposal seeks neither an increase nor decrease in overall program funding; rather, its central aim is to maximize the…

The present study describes the development and initial validation of the Coping with the College Environment Scale (CWCES). Participants included 433 college students who took an online survey. Principal Components Analysis (PCA) revealed six coping strategies: planning and self-management, seeking support from institutional resources, escaping…

The objective of this qualitative study was to establish the existing positive factors in the lives of 18 juvenile males living in a low-security correctional facility in order to determine approaches which foster resiliency. Urie Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory, an approach to understanding human development within the context of the…