Propensity to Work Among Chronically Unemployed Adult Drug Users

Abstract

Analyses were conducted to compare rates of employment before, during, and after employment at the therapeutic workplace, which is a novel employment-based treatment for drug misuse. Participants in two clinical trials attended the therapeutic workplace at higher rates than they worked before intake and six months after discharge. These data suggest that unemployed chronic drug misusers will attend work at higher rates at the therapeutic workplace than in the community when paid modest wages, and that the failure of chronic drug misusers to obtain employment in the community may not result from lack of interest in work.

RÉSUMÉ

Les analyses ont étéfaites afin de comparer le taux d’emploi avant, pendant et après l’emploi au centre de travail thérapeutique, qui offre un nouveau traitement pour la toxicomanie. Les participants à deux essais cliniques, ont assisté au centre de travail thérapeutique aux taux supérieurs qu’avant d’être admis et six mois après leur sortie du programme. Ces données suggèrent que les chômeurs toxicomanes chroniques participeront à travailler aux taux plus élevés au centre de travail thérapeutique que dans la communauté quand ils sont payés un salaire modeste, et que l’échec de ces individus à obtenir un emploi dans la communauté ne soit pas résultat d’un manque d’intérêt au travail.

RESUMEN

Los análisis fueron orientados a comparar la tasa de empleo antes, durante y después del empleo en el lugar de trabajo terapéutico, el cual es un nuevo tratamiento para el abuso de drogas, basado en el empleo. Los participantes en dos ensayos clínicos acudieron al lugar de trabajo terapéutico en una tasa mayor a la que asistían antes de ser admitidos y seis meses después de ser dados de alta. Esta data sugiere que el desempleado que abusa de drogas crónicamente acudirá al trabajo con mayor frecuencia cuando el mismo es en el lugar de trabajo terapéutico que cuando es en la comunidad y es compensado con salarios modestos, y también sugiere que el fracaso en obtener empleo en la comunidad de quien abusa drogas crónicamente puede que no se deba a una falta de interés en el trabajo.

Keywords :

• drug misuse
• employment
• therapeutic workplace
• vocational training

THE AUTHORS

Dr. Sigurdur Oli Sigurdsson received his doctorate in Behavior Analysis from Western Michigan University in 2006. He is currently an assistant professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Dr. Sigurdsson has published research in the areas of occupational safety, traffic safety, and organizational behavior.

Dr. Anthony DeFulio came to the Center for Learning and Health as a post-doctoral fellow in 2007 after earning a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Florida, where he studied the experimental analysis of behavior. He currently serves as the associate director of the Center for Learning and Heath.

Lauren Long is currently in her final semester as an undergraduate psychology student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She works as an undergraduate research assistant at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and at the Center for Learning and Health at Johns Hopkins University, Bayview Campus.

Dr. Kenneth Silverman is a professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Silverman's research at Johns Hopkins has been funded by grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and focuses on developing operant treatments to address the interrelated problems of poverty and drug addiction.

GLOSSARY

• Community Employment: employment in community workplaces where participants must compete to obtain the employment.

• Employment Barrier: factors that may make it difficult to obtain community employment. These may include variables such as lack of interest in employment, low levels of education, vocational training, and/or general work-related skills (e.g., computer skills), limited access to resources like childcare and transportation, and deficits in social skills, such as acceptance of authority.

• Hard Skills: specific job skills that may be applicable to a number of jobs or professions (e.g., computer skills) or specific to a small set of jobs or professions (e.g., skills related to installing television cable service equipment).

• Pre-employment Behaviors: behaviors related to securing employment. These may include identifying suitable job openings, creating a resume, and preparing for a job-interview.

• Soft Skills: a set of general interpersonal and social skills that translate to any employment setting. Examples include getting along well with coworkers, supervisors, and customers, attending work reliably and on time, and completing work in a timely manner.

• Therapeutic Workplace: an employment-based substance abuse treatment program that uses wages earned for working to reinforce abstinence. In the therapeutic workplace, participants are hired and paid to work but are required to provide objective evidence of recent drug abstinence to work and earn wages. There are two phases to the treatment, a training phase designed to initiate abstinence and teach necessary job skills and an employment phase in which participants are hired to perform real jobs. During the training phase, participants earn vouchers exchangeable for goods and services instead of cash to reduce the chance that they will use their earning to purchase drugs. During the employment phase, participants earn paychecks.

Notes

2 The reader is reminded that substance users, of whatever types of use, manner, and patterns of use, and types of drugs used, represent a heterogeneous population and not a homogeneous one. Effective program planning and implementation needs to be sensitive to this reality, while the reality of limited intervention resources can and does effect such “matching.” Editor's note.

3 A range of licit and illicit substance users, misusers, and abstainers are gainfully employed, globally, at varying levels and types of quality and appropriateness. Among them are active substance users who also function as salaried peer change agents. A critical issue is examining the critical necessary conditions (endogenous as well as exogenous ones; micro to macro levels) for such employment to operate or not. Editor's note.