Introduction: New Directions for Vocational Rehabilitation in Substance User Treatment: Rebuilding Damaged Lives

Abstract

If an important objective of addiction treatment is to increase patient employment, then it makes sense to locate vocational assistance within treatment programs. The purpose of this special issue is to present new research on the improvement of vocational services in addiction treatment. The volume begins with a critical review and synthesis of three decades of research on the effectiveness of specialized vocational services for addiction treatment patients. The new evaluation studies in this volume break down into those conducted in methadone treatment vs. other types of treatment settings. The volume concludes with a framework for evaluating the cost-effectiveness of vocational rehabilitation within addiction treatment. Critical issues that need resolution in this field are identified.

• Addiction treatment
• Vocational rehabilitation
• Vocational services

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephen Magura

Stephen Magura, Ph.D., C.S.W., is Acting Executive Director of NDRI and has been the Principal Investigator of many studies sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the National Institute on Child Health and Development. These studies have included drug abuse clinical trials, treatment outcome evaluations, health services research, social epidemiology studies, HIV prevention research, and policy analysis. Dr. Magura has authored or edited several books and special journal issues, including Outcome Measures for Child Welfare Services (1986), Experimental Therapeutics in Addiction Medicine (1994), a special issue of Health and Social Work on “Chemical Dependency” (1994), and a special issue of Substance Use & Misuse on “Program Quality in Substance Dependency Treatment” (2000). He serves on the Editorial Boards of five professional journals, is an elected member of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD) and the Research Society on Alcoholism (RSA), serves on federal advisory committees, and is a faculty member of the Middle Eastern-Mediterranean Summer Institute on Drug Use.

Graham L. Staines

Graham Staines, Ph.D., is a Senior Project Director at NDRI where he has directed projects on modified therapeutic communities for both methadone patients and mentally ill chemical abusers (MICAs), treatment matching on levels of care among alcoholics, and new models of vocational rehabilitation for methadone clients. Prior to coming to NDRI, he was a Study Director at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Funded by the Department of Labor, his research, which focused on the quality of work life, included three national Quality of Employment Surveys of representative samples of workers. In addition to journal articles, his publications on the relationship between work and family life include The Impact of Work Schedules on the Family (co-authored with Joseph H. Pleck in 1983).