Residential treatment for women with dependent children: one agency's approach.

The Salvation Army First Choice Program, located in Fort Worth, Texas, provides comprehensive-as well as gender-specific-treatment for addicted women while providing child care and therapeutic services for children. Specific program attributes (including therapeutic interventions, community linkages, and staffing patterns) are described, and the five-year evaluation initiative, designed to examine relationships between client characteristics, program participation, and client progress is outlined. Findings from initial analyses examining correlates of 90-day dropout suggest a complex interaction among specific problems a woman brings to treatment, her level of dysfunction at treatment entry, how much social support is available to her, and what services she receives.

Influences of family and friends on client progress during drug abuse treatment.

Relationships with family and friends by 439 heroin addicts during the first 3 months of drug abuse treatment were examined in relation to behavioral improvements of clients. Family conflict and peer deviance were significant predictors of injection frequency and illegal activity during treatment, and reductions in family conflict were associated with lower drug use, injection frequency, and illegal activity during treatment. These results provide support for treatment emphasis on helping clients reduce conflict among family members, improve dysfunctional relationships with peers, and replace deviant friendships with others that encourage treatment participation and conformance to social norms.

Predictors of program completion for women in residential substance abuse treatment.

Although there is increasing emphasis on providing drug treatment programs for women that address their specific needs (including parenting and childcare), some women still fail to complete treatment. Because of the limited information about the barriers involved, this study examines pretreatment characteristics as predictors of program completion for 87 women who were pregnant or who entered residential treatment with their children. By using a multivariate prediction model, three significant predictors of treatment completion were identified: education level, recent arrests, and peer deviance. Women who completed program requirements were more likely to have a high school degree or equivalent, no arrests in the 6 months before admission, and friends who were less deviant. These findings support the need for specialized education and services that address social deviancy of pregnant and/or parenting women. Other predictors that approached significance and deserve further study include marital status, number of children in treatment, child welfare involvement, cocaine use, and psychological depression.

Change in psychosocial functioning and social relations among women in residential substance abuse treatment.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the degree to which psychosocial functioning and social relationships changed during the first 3 months of treatment among women in a residential substance abuse program that emphasizes the importance of developing healthy relationships. METHODS: Participants included 77 female clients admitted to the Salvation Army First Choice (FC) Program in Fort Worth, TX. Assessments of psychological functioning, family relations, and peer relations were administered at treatment entry and again after 3 months. Relationships with clients in treatment and friends outside treatment were measured separately. RESULTS: Repeated-measures analyses of variance (ANOVA) indicated that interpersonal relationships improved. Family networks increased, family cohesion increased, and family conflict decreased. Peer networks changed as well, due in part to new relationships with other clients in treatment. The number of drug-using friends decreased, peer deviance and negative influence decreased, and social conformity among friends increased. There was a corresponding improvement in psychosocial functioning. IMPLICATIONS: Results suggested that relationship-centered treatment for women was effective. Clients reestablished connections with family members, disassociated from drug-using peers, and improved the quality of relationships with family members and friends. Further research is needed in order to examine the influence of specific treatment components and the potential long-term effects of changes in women's relationships.

Psychosocial functioning among adult drug users: the role of parental absence, support, and conflict.

The relationship between perceptions of parental absence, support, and conflict during childhood and psychosocial functioning in adulthood was examined for 411 drug user clients in methadone treatment. History of parental support was related to adult psychosocial functioning and parent-child conflict was related to psychosocial functioning only when parental support was low. Findings indicate parental absence is related to the quality of parental support, which in turn predicts psychosocial functioning in adulthood. Implications for treatment intervention are discussed.

Antisocial tendency among drug-addicted adults: potential long-term effects of parental absence, support, and conflict during childhood.

This study examined the relationship between perceptions of parent-child relations in the family of origin and antisocial tendency in a sample of drug-addicted adults. Data included retrospective accounts of childhood family factors, adolescent antisocial tendency, and self-reported hostility and risk-taking prior to treatment entry. A developmental model was tested that included adolescent antisocial tendency as a mediator of the relationship between childhood parenting factors and adulthood antisocial tendency. The effects of parental support and conflict were found to operate primarily through adolescent measures. Specifically, lower levels of parental support and higher levels of conflict with parents predicted greater adolescent antisocial tendency, which in turn predicted more hostility and risk-taking in adulthood. Thus, parental support appears to serve as a buffer against deviant behavior and drug use.

Peer, family, and motivational influences on drug treatment process and recidivism for probationers.

Treatment efforts appear to be effective in reducing crime among drug using individuals, but components of the treatment process associated with client improvement need to be identified. Furthermore, these elements of treatment may play an intermediate role in the connection between client background characteristics and later criminal activity. The current study examines a structural equation model including client perceptions of their drug related problems, peer deviance, and family dysfunction as influences upon the formation of therapeutic relationships during treatment and rearrests following treatment. Results showed therapeutic relationships were positively associated with recognition of drug related problems and negatively related to rearrest. Peer deviance also was positively related to rearrest.

The role of node-link mapping in individual and group counseling.

The value of using a visual representation strategy, called node-linking mapping, was evaluated in individual and group drug abuse counseling settings. Methadone maintenance clients were randomly assigned to counselors trained to use mapping techniques (n = 57), and those who used standard counseling (n = 51). Clients in the mapping counseling group had more favorable perceptions of their own therapeutic engagement and progress as indicated by ratings of cognitive-behavioral and motivational attributes than did those in standard counseling. Overall, individual sessions were viewed by clients as being more valuable than group counseling, but the use of mapping increased the helpfulness attributed to group counseling to near the same level as individual counseling.