Graduate School of Social Work, University of Denver, Denver, CO 80208, USA.
Graduate School of Social Work, University of Denver, Denver, CO 80208, USA.
Child Abuse Negl. 2017 Feb;64:101-108. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2016.12.011.
Supporting child welfare (CW) workers' ability to accurately assess substance abuse needs and link families to appropriate services is critical given the high prevalence of parental substance use disorders (SUD) among CW-involved cases. Several barriers hinder this process, including CW workers' lack of expertise for identifying SUD needs and scarcity of treatment resources. Drawing from theories and emergent literature on interagency collaboration, this study examined the role of collaboration in increasing the availability of resources for identifying and treating SUDs in CW agencies. Using data from the second cohort of families from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being, study findings highlight a lack of SUD resources available to CW workers. On the other hand, the availability of SUD resources was increased when CW agencies had a memorandum of understanding, co-location of staff, and more intense collaboration with drug and alcohol service (DAS) providers. These results provide evidence to support efforts to improve collaboration between CW and DAS providers and showcase specific collaboration strategies to implement in order to improve service delivery.
鉴于儿童福利（CW）工作者所处理的案例中，父母物质使用障碍（SUD）的高发病率，支持 CW 工作者准确评估物质滥用需求并将家庭与适当的服务联系起来的能力至关重要。有几个障碍阻碍了这一过程，包括 CW 工作者识别 SUD 需求的专业知识不足和治疗资源稀缺。本研究借鉴了关于机构间合作的理论和新兴文献，探讨了合作在增加 CW 机构识别和治疗 SUD 的资源可用性方面的作用。利用来自国家儿童和青少年健康调查第二队列家庭的数据，研究结果强调 CW 工作者可用的 SUD 资源不足。另一方面，当 CW 机构之间有谅解备忘录、工作人员同地办公以及与毒品和酒精服务（DAS）提供者之间有更紧密的合作时，SUD 资源的可用性会增加。这些结果为支持改善 CW 和 DAS 提供者之间的合作努力提供了证据，并展示了实施以改善服务提供的具体合作策略。
