The Institute for Health and Recovery (IHR) and the Middlesex Human Service Agency received funding from SAMHSA/CSAT/CHAB to create Families Living Together, a five-year program for 267 homeless women and their children living in shelters. Families Living Together provided Integrated Trauma-Informed Treatment which included the evidence based practices of Motivational Interviewing, Integrated Dual Diagnosis Treatment, The Nurturing Program for Families in Substance Abuse Treatment and Recovery and Seeking Safety, while strengthening the ability of shelter staff to encourage homeless women to access treatment in the community. Advocates for Human Potential, the project evaluators, compiled comprehensive process and outcome data through GPRA and local interviews with Families Living Together women at intake and six months.
Results
Based on data collected in the five years of the Families Living Together program, there was evidence of improvement on most outcomes, including the following:
- Residential Stability-Housing: Significant increase in percent housed (past 30 days); decrease in number of moves.
- School/work/income: Significant increase in percent in training/school, percent employed, percent having more than one source of income, mean total income.
- Physical Health: Significant increase in percent rating their health as excellent/very good.
- Mental Health: Significant decrease in percent meeting criteria for current mental health problem; significant improvements in mental health symptoms including depression and anxiety, and a significant increase in self-esteem index scores.
- Trauma: Significant decrease in percent meeting the criteria for a PTSD diagnosis, significant decrease in trauma symptom severity.
- Legal Involvement: Significant decrease in percent reporting committing a crime.
- Substance Use: Measures related to abstinence were mixed: percent reporting using alcohol increased, while percent reporting using illegal drugs decreased significantly. Qualitative data suggests increase in reported alcohol use is related to a number of factors including underreporting at intake due to the shelter policy of discharge for alcohol/drug use. In fact, of those who reported alcohol use at 6 months, 59 percent were no longer living in the shelter but were living in the community.
Awards
Families Living Together is a 2010 recipient of SAMHSA’s Science and Service Award for Exemplary Practice.