HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH
Restructuring Services for Drug-Abusing TANF Women (“The Welfare Study”)

Aims:
The Welfare Study seeks to compare the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of two service delivery models designed to help substance-dependent women on welfare engage in substance abuse treatment and obtain employment.

Approach:
The study is designed as a three-armed clinical trial comparing the effectiveness of an intensive case-management model to that of an assessment and referral model, and comparing the clients enrolled in both models to a comparison sample of women on welfare who do not have substance abuse problems.

Women in the substance-dependent sample are randomly assigned to one of the two treatment models. Women in all three groups are assessed at enrollment and at 3, 9, 15 and 24 months post-enrollment.

Data are gathered related to drug and alcohol use and treatment; education, training and employment; physical and mental health including depression and HIV risk; involvement with the legal system; trauma and violence; barriers to employment; and child well-being.

Data related to program costs are being collected by colleagues at the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, under the direction of the study’s principal investigator, Dr. Jon Morgenstern.

The study is being carried out in Essex and Atlantic Counties in New Jersey, in collaboration with the New Jersey Department of Human Services.

Personnel:
Barbara S. McCrady, Ph.D. and Jon Morgenstern, Ph.D., Principal Investigators
Tracy Simmons-Hart, M.A., Research Program Manager
Audrey Redding Raines, Research Project Assistant

Funding:
The Welfare Study is funded by grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the Administration for Children and Families, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation

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