Rising strong: a housing-based intervention to prevent childhood out-of-home placements from families impacted by housing instability, opioid use, and other substance use disorders

ABSTRACT

Rising Strong is a housing-based intervention created to reunify families involved in the child welfare system by providing housing, opioid and other substance use disorder treatment, and other supports. There were 45 families in the program; 37 of those families consented to an 18-month program evaluation. Preliminary data indicates 56% of parents used opioids in the past year with statistically significant higher odds of experiencing symptoms of depression and trauma-related stress than those who did not report opioid use. Other results describe how the program overcame challenges and offers recommendations for developing a unique co-occurring treatment program.

KEYWORDS:

• Housing-based
• intervention
• child welfare
• opioid use disorder
• co-occurring disorders

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Catholic Charities of Eastern Washington, Rising Strong staff, as well as all the participants that made this study possible.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Funding for the Rising Strong Regional Partnership: Family-Centered Treatment with Housing was provided by the Regional Partnership Grant administered by the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families, Children’s Bureau [90CU0081]. The funders had a role in the study design and data collection. They did not have a role in the analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.