Although greater than half of parents involved in child family service agencies have evidenced drug abuse, no treatment outcome studies have explicitly been conducted in this population. Moreover, the lack of controlled treatment outcome research in child protective service settings, particularly within child neglect, is well documented. Of the very few outcome studies that have been conducted in child neglecting parents, almost exclusively mothers, the home-based behavioral therapies appear to be particularly promising.
The specific aims of this Stage IA/IB study are to: (1) develop the first family-based behavioral therapy treatment manual to explicitly address drug abuse within the context of child neglect, (2) develop accompanying protocol adherence measures, including video scenarios depicting effective implementation of the developed treatment procedures, (3) train program staff to effectively use the developed interventions, (4) examine the reliability, feasibility and clinical utility of the developed manual, as well as the developed method of protocol adherence in clinical case trials involving drug abusing mothers who have evidence child neglect, (5) conduct a controlled comparison of the developed behavior therapy and """"""""treatment as usual"""""""" (TAU) Family Services (random assignment of participants to experimental conditions), (6) utilize structured clinical interviews to formally diagnose mothers as drug abusing or drug dependent, as well as standardized methods to assess severity of child neglect, (7) maintain standardization and uniformity of treatments by incorporating treatment manuals, therapist protocol checklists, structured supervision of therapists, assessment of treatment protocol adherence via objective review by independent raters, standardized program introduction during all initial treatment sessions, and equal duration of treatments, (8) utilize objective assessment methods for both child maltreatment (e.g., safety assessment tours of participant homes), and presence of drug use (e.g., urine drug assay tests), as well as standardized measures in the assessment of illicit drug use frequency, child maltreatment, parenting behavior, conduct, and family functioning, (9) examine the initial efficacy of the developed behavioral therapy, as compared with TAU (pre/post assessment), as well as assess durability of study findings (pre/FU assessment).
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