Working with Children of Parents with Substance Use Disorders: Evaluation of a Course Module

Abstract

Social workers are in a position to identify the effects of substance use disorders (SUDs) on children and families and provide appropriate interventions in broad practice contexts. Unfortunately, many social workers are not trained to consider parental SUDs and their effects on children in the assessment process. A course module for training social work students on working with children of a parent(s) who has a SUD was developed to fill this gap. This study reports on an evaluation of this module that was conducted with 52 students in baccalaureate-level Human Behavior in the Social Environment courses. Significant increases in knowledge, self-efficacy beliefs, and perceived abilities were observed, and students reported high levels of satisfaction with the module.