Scientific evidence shows that women respond best to a women-centered approach to treatment, onsite childcare, co-occurring disorder treatment, and trauma or sexual abuse counseling. Treatment programs should also provide women with skills, knowledge, and support to enable them to maintain their change in substance use behavior when they return to their homes and communities. This practical and evidence-based Technical Assistance program will help any program or country review its women's substance use disorder treatment access, programming, workforce and treatment outcomes. It will also provide tailored training, mentoring, and support to improve treatment access, treatment quality, and resulting treatment outcomes for women with substance use disorders.
Leaders of the GWN have provided Technical Assistance to programs in Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America. We have also trained over 500 professionals in women-centered treatment for substance use disorders. We have a Practical Knowledge Program that meets virtually each month and routinely has over 60 women's treatment professionals attended from 15 different countries to learn and exchange knowledge and practices to help improve women's treatment.
We provide customized evidence-based Technical Assistance (TA), including theme-oriented TA (e.g. trauma-based treatment, stigma management, co-occurring disorder treatment, and staff awareness on gender) to expand women's substance use disorder treatment on a program-by-program or larger up-to-country context. We will conduct a pre-TA assessment that identifies strengths and areas for improvement. Then, we work with the stakeholders to develop a tailored approach to develop an implementation plan to meet the desired goals and objectives for women's substance use disorder treatment. We offer a “360 TA” option for those interested in the creation and development of a substance use disorder treatment center for women. We also develop customized trainings for your workforce to optimize gender-based workflow and can help review and develop all policies, procedures, and outcome measures to help the program or country meet its individual goals and objectives for women's treatment. We provide an evaluation of treatment during and after all aspects of TA are implemented, as well as a sustainability plan for continuing the ongoing programming improvement process.
For each desired outcome jointly identified by the global stakeholders and the TA team of experts, measures are developed to demonstrate to decision-makers the benefits of the customized TA to programs, communities, and countries. Measures may include the following:
- Expanded global access to substance use disorder treatment for women as measured by pre and post-service mapping;
- Improved women's treatment outcomes globally, including % of women completing treatment, % of women drug-free at and after treatment completion, % of women with improved mental health, trauma and quality of life outcomes as measured by comprehensive assessment pre and post-treatment and 6 months after treatment completion; % of women with no return to substance use, % of women with reduced legal or incarceration involvement;
- Improved skills and knowledge in the global women's treatment workforce as measured by pre and post-training tests;
- Other global, country or program specific outcomes of interest as determined by shared-decision making with stakeholders.
For each desired outcome jointly identified by stakeholders and the TA team of experts, measures are developed for the purpose of demonstrating to decision-makers the benefits of the customized TA to programs, communities, and countries. Measures may include the following:
- Expanded access to substance use disorder treatment for women as measured by pre and post-service mapping;
- Improved women's treatment outcomes, including % of women completing treatment, % of women drug-free at and after treatment completion, % of women with improved mental health, trauma and quality of life outcomes as measured by comprehensive assessment pre and post-treatment and 6 months after treatment completion; % of women with no return to substance use, % of women with reduced legal or incarceration involvement;
- Improved skills and knowledge in the women's treatment workforce as measured by pre and post-training tests;
- Other program or country specific outcomes of interest as determined by shared-decision making with stakeholders
Current State Participants
The formal TA project is just launching. We do have a long track record of program-specific TA projects across many countries and continents that we are glad to discuss and provide references upon request.
Dr. Hendrée E. Jones, Global Lead, Global Womens Network Professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, School of Medicine; The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), hendree_jones [at] med [dot] unc [dot] edu (hendree_jones[at]med[dot]unc[dot]edu)
