Strengthening Neighborhood Investment: An Evaluation

University Of Alabama In Tuscaloosa, Tuscaloosa AL

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although poverty in the United States has decreased since 1959, poverty and its related problems continue to pose important threats to American inner cities. One of the poverty-related problems that has defied solution is substance use and abuse among adolescents living there. Many substance abuse programs have been implemented to serve adolescents living in impoverished inner-city areas. However, they have not been specifically designed to meet the needs of inner-city adolescents living in extreme poverty; nor has their effectiveness with this population been evaluated. The special circumstances of inner-city adolescents require a different approach than is typically adopted. Many experience feelings of disempowerment, hopelessness, and despair that may prevent them from actively engaging drug and alcohol services; and those that do receive substance abuse services return to the same environment that helped create their risk behavior in the first place. The only way to counter these negative forces is to couple substance abuse treatment with an intensive long-term effort to change the neighborhoods themselves, working with residents to build a sense of community and a belief that they can improve the quality of life in their neighborhoods. We have incorporated this approach into our Strengthening Neighborhood Investment Program (SNIP), a community-based substance abuse treatment program funded by CSAT; in fact, community development and outreach are tied directly to the treatment services, with outreach workers taking a role in the treatment and the aftercare that adolescents receive. This program has been implemented in five inner-city neighborhoods in Mobile, Alabama. We propose to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of SNIP, which will add to our understanding of adolescent substance abuse and its treatment in several ways. First, the evaluation will examine the effectiveness of evidence-based treatment modalities for underserved inner-city adolescents whose needs and circumstances are different from those adolescents who are typically served by treatment programs. Second, it will examine the value added by an intensive outreach and community- development component. Third, it will examine the implementation of substance abuse programs in inner-city neighborhoods. Fourth, it will explore the impact of this neighborhood-based program on the metropolitan area system of care for adolescent substance users and abusers.