Grant Award to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University

This notice is to inform the public that CSAT is making available approximately $300,000 for an award in FY 1998 to CASA to support a program intended to identify an effective model for maximizing help to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) eligible women suffering from alcohol and other drug problems, to eliminate or reduce their substance use, obtain and maintain employment and, consequently, reduce their dependence on welfare. Eligibility for this program is limited to CASA because CASA is the only organization that has established and will soon implement at several sites an experimental design research program for moving substance abusing TANF recipients into sustained employment. The application will be considered for funding on the basis of its overall technical merit as determined through the peer and CSAT National Advisory Council review processes. An award to CASA will supplement a program that CASA has already initiated with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to test a comprehensive treatment/employment preparedness model in six sites. Funding from CSAT will allow for the establishment and evaluation of this model in a seventh less populated site. Without CSAT funding, such a site would not have participated in this program and the applicability of the model in a less populated location would not be known. A lead agency will be identified at each program site by CASA. This agency can be a community based substance abuse treatment, employment, or social services agency. The site will integrate gender- specific, culturally/ethnically appropriate, comprehensive treatment (including substance abuse treatment, employability training, medical services, life skills training, support services, and family services) in a nurturing setting, under the guidance of intensive case management. Each site will coordinate with other community resources, as necessary, to ensure that program participants are provided with the comprehensive array of services. A multi-site evaluation, using matched control groups, will be undertaken by an external evaluator, and an internal process and qualitative evaluation will be conducted by CASA.