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Nurturing Program for Families in Substance Abuse Treatment and Recovery

Topic Areas
Scientific Rating
Child Welfare Relevance
Substance Abuse Treatment (Adult)
NR  — Not able to be Rated
Medium

About This Program

Target Population: Parents who are in substance abuse treatment and recovery; and may have current or past mental health issues and/or trauma

For parents/caregivers of children ages: 0 – 17

Program Overview

The Nurturing Program for Families in Substance Abuse Treatment and Recovery focuses on the effects of substance abuse on families, parenting, and the parent-child relationship. Combining experiential and didactic exercises, the approach is designed to enhance parents' self-awareness and thereby increase their capacity to understand their children. Parents may experience loss of self-image as being capable, effective parents. They may have a diminished capacity for empathy. In addition, the parent-child bond may be weakened by periods of physical and/or emotional unavailability of parents; thus resulting in gaps in parents' knowledge of the experiences, milestones and growth of their children. This program is designed to assist parents in re-establishing the strength of their connections with their children.


Program Goals

The goals for Nurturing Program for Families in Substance Abuse Treatment and Recovery are:

  • Enhance parents' self-awareness and thereby increase understanding of their children
  • Enhance parents' attunement to both their feelings, thoughts, and needs, as well as the feelings, thoughts, and needs of their children and loved ones
  • Re-establish the strength of parents' connections to their children so that parents and children can heal together
  • Explore, discover, and cultivate parents' and family members' strengths and assets
  • Address the specific parenting needs of families affected by parental substance use and co-occurring disorders
  • Enhance parents' capacity to nurture themselves and their children
  • Help strengthen parents' and children's self-esteem

Logic Model

The program representative did not provide information about a Logic Model for Nurturing Program for Families in Substance Abuse Treatment and Recovery.

Essential Components

The essential components of Nurturing Program for Families in Substance Abuse Treatment and Recovery include:

  • Parents and group facilitators participating in this program are collaborators in the process; the model is both interactive and instructional.
  • The focus throughout the program is on nurturing the parent, while expanding the parents' ability to transmit this nurturance to their children.
  • Parents practice parenting skills in sessions, and then with their child(ren). There is a Family Activities Manual, published by Family Development Resources, Inc., which was designed to provide activities for parents and children to do together, and to be used as a complement to the Nurturing Program. In addition, one adaptation of the curriculum includes a curriculum designed for children's groups, covering similar topics as the parenting curriculum, to be completed at the same time as the parenting groups.
  • Parents learn to see addiction as a disease affecting all family members, across generations, and that recovery is also a process, which affects all family members, across generations.
  • The learning involved in this program, like the experience of recovery, involves re-working of tasks and stages of life, and re-evaluation and re-patterning of principles and actions.
  • There are 3 sessions specifically designed for work with men/fathers, to address specific concerns that men have related to substance use and parenting. These sessions may be used in addition to the 17 basic topic areas, or substituted for other topics (suggested topics for substitution provided). These sessions allow men to examine what it means to be a man, what place men have in the lives of their children, and the challenges that exist as they struggle to balance parenting and recovery.
  • The Nurturing Program for Families in Substance Abuse Treatment and Recovery: Guide for Individual Use, is available for use with individuals and families who may not be ready for a group experience. It is geared for individual/family work in a variety of home and program settings, including in home visiting programs.

Program Delivery

Parent/Caregiver Services

Nurturing Program for Families in Substance Abuse Treatment and Recovery directly provides services to parents/caregivers and addresses the following:

  • Substance use disorders, mental health issues, and/or trauma
Services Involve Family/Support Structures:

This program involves the family or other support systems in the individual's treatment: A companion curriculum, Building Resiliency in Kids (BRIK), has nine group sessions designed for children in families affected by substance use, mental illness and domestic violence. The major goals are: To support children's own vocabulary of feelings To strengthen children's self-esteem To promote resiliency To "break the secret" of abuse in the family To help children learn skills to protect themselves

Recommended Intensity:

One contact per week

Recommended Duration:

Each contact session is 90 minutes in length. The treatment spans 17 weeks, but curricula can be adapted for 11 weekly sessions, or 60-minute sessions.

Delivery Settings

This program is typically conducted in a(n):

  • Outpatient Clinic
  • Community-based Agency / Organization / Provider
  • Group or Residential Care
  • School Setting (Including: Day Care, Day Treatment Programs, etc.)

Resources Needed to Run Program

The typical resources for implementing the program are:

  • Tables and chairs that can be moved around for small group activities
  • TV/DVD player
  • Some art and crafts supplies

Manuals and Training

Prerequisite/Minimum Provider Qualifications

Experience with substance abuse treatment/recovery and parenting/child development strongly recommended; plus group facilitation experience

Manual Information

There is a manual that describes how to deliver this program.

Training Information

There is training available for this program.

Training Contact:
Training Type/Location:

Training is provided in Massachusetts 2x/year. Training is also provided nationally.

Number of days/hours:

2 days of training/7 hours each day

Relevant Published, Peer-Reviewed Research

The following studies were not included in rating Nurturing Program for Families in Substance Abuse Treatment and Recovery on the Scientific Rating Scale...

Camp, J. M., & Finkelstein, N. (1997). Parenting training for women in residential substance abuse treatment. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 14(5), 411–422. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0740-5472(97)00004-4

The purpose of the study was to present findings on the impact of implementing a parenting component in two urban residential treatment programs in Massachusetts for pregnant and parenting chemically dependent women. The curriculum utilized for this program was the Nurturing Program for Parents of Children Birth to Five Years Old [now called Nurturing Program for Families in Substance Abuse Treatment and Recovery]. Participants in both sites received the intervention. Measures utilized include the Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI), the Hudson Self-Esteem Index, and the Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training Feeding Scale (NCAST). Results indicate that women at site A showed improvement on all domains of the AAPI between baseline and follow-up and women at site B showed improvement on two domains: lack of empathy and role reversal. Women in the study had good parent-child interaction scores on the NCAST at baseline, but also showed improvement over time. For site A the greatest improvement was seen in White women, while at site B the biggest gains were seen for Black women, the majority ethnic group at that site. Limitations include attrition rates, concerns regarding differences in program delivery between the two sites, lack of randomization, lack of a control group, and lack of follow-up.

Moore, J., & Finkelstein, N. (2001). Parenting services for families affected by substance abuse. Child Welfare, 80(2), 221–238. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ637731

The study used the same sample as Camp & Finkelstein (1997). The purpose of the study was to present findings on the impact of the development, implementation, and replication of a group-based parenting program, Nurturing Program for Parents of Children Birth to Five Years Old [now called Nurturing Program for Families in Substance Abuse Treatment and Recovery] in Massachusetts at two residential treatment programs for pregnant and parenting chemically dependent women. Participants in both sites received the intervention. Measures utilized include the Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI), the Hudson Self-Esteem Index, and the Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training Feeding Scale (NCAST). Results indicate that women completing the Nurturing Program had longer average times to relapse than those who did not complete the program. (14.7 months versus 9.4 months.) Limitations include attrition rates, concerns regarding differences in program delivery between the two sites, lack of randomization, lack of a control group, and lack of follow-up.

Additional References

Family Development Resources. (2012). Nurturing Program for Families in Substance Abuse Treatment & Recovery (3rd ed.). Available at http://www.healthrecovery.org/publications/

Jablonski, B., & Moses, D. J. (2002). Innovations from the sites: Nurturing Families affected by substance abuse, mental illness and trauma: a parenting curriculum for women and children. Delmar, NY: Policy Research Associates.

Suchman, N. E., Pajulo, M., DeCoste, C., & Mayes, L. C. (2006). Parenting interventions for drug dependent mothers and their young children: The case for an attachment-based approach. Family Relations, 55(2), 211-226.

Contact Information

Terri Bogage
Agency/Affiliation: The Institute for Health and Recovery
Website: www.healthrecovery.org/page/nurturing-program-for-families-in-substance-abuse-treatment-recovery
Email:
Phone: (617) 661-3991

Date Research Evidence Last Reviewed by CEBC: October 2024

Date Program Content Last Reviewed by Program Staff: October 2017

Date Program Originally Loaded onto CEBC: August 2006