The proposed research demonstration project will focus on an evaluation of the effectiveness of peer support groups for approximately 300 formerly homeless recovering women who have moved from emergency shelters or residential drug treatment programs into public housing. The project will compare outcomes over an eighteen-month period for women from this target population who volunteer to participate in the study and are randomly assigned to either an experimental group, which will participate in peer support groups and receive case management services, or a control group, which will receive case management services alone. The objectives of the study are to measure the effect of a peer group/case management intervention for the target population on: (1) abstinence from drug use; (2) establishing social networks; (3) improving mental health and social functioning; and (4) increasing social and economic stability. The proposed research will include follow-up interviews of all study participants at three-month intervals over an eighteen-month period and observation of one peer group cohort. Data collected from these groups will be used to determine the effect of participation in neighborhood-based peer support groups with case management services compared to case management services alone in improving participants' continued abstinence from drugs, the quality and extent of their social networks, their social functioning and psychological well-being, and their social and economic stability.
| Coughey, K; Feighan, K; Cheney, R et al. (1998) Retention in an aftercare program for recovering women. Subst Use Misuse 33:917-33 |
| McMillan, D; Cheney, R (1992) Aftercare for formerly homeless, recovering women: issues for case management. NIDA Res Monogr 127:274-88 |
