Evidence Based Policy, Practice & Programs

Women’s gender-specific treatment is evidence based and encompasses a well-documented array of service types and approaches. As defined in the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant , these services include at a minimum:

Primary medical care for women and their children as well as transportation and child care to facilitate participation in services;
Gender-specific substance abuse treatment and other therapeutic interventions for women that may address issues of relationships, sexual and physical abuse, and parenting, and child care while women are receiving such services. This also includes transportation to and from treatment.
Therapeutic interventions for children
Sufficient case management that women have access to the above services
Address health issues, provide case management to establish eligibility for public assistance programs, employment and training programs, education and special education programs, drug free housing for women and their children, prenatal care and other health care services, therapeutic day care for children, Head Start, and other early childhood programs.

In Colorado, providers of women’s gender-specific treatment are not required to utilize any specific curriculum (although there are a number of good and useful curricula available) per the Substance Use Disorder Treatment Rules currently in effect. Instead, it is written in rule that providers who possess women’s gender-specific treatment licenses must tailor their services to be trauma informed. They must also identify the theory base from which they are working, the interventions and activities that constitute their treatment model, and the outcomes they expect to get from the services they provide.

Curriculum

As stated above, no formal curriculum is required for use in women’s gender-specific programming. That being said, there are two curricula that have grown in popularity, these being Seeking Safety , by Lisa Najavits, and Helping Women Recover, by Stephanie Covington. Both are curricula that an experienced practitioner can use who has a thorough knowledge of the field of women’s treatment, and who have absorbed the material contained in these curricula sufficiently to be able to respond and individualize these protocols as needed. Formal training is always recommended, and can be had by contacting http://www.seekingsafety.org or http://www.stephaniecovington.com.