Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Addiction treatment for women is most successful when it recognizes the specific needs of and barriers faced by women accessing services. Motherhood, for example, is a unique role that more than 70% of women entering addictions treatment programs fulfill. Consideration of this role is essential as these women experience increased parenting challenges and high levels of stress in relation to meeting the needs of their children. Women seeking treatment are motivated to enhance their parenting capacity, yet entering treatment can engender feelings of guilt, shame, and stigmatization that hinder engagement and positive outcomes. In response, 30 treatment programs have been locally developed across Ontario to address the complex needs of these women and their young children. As programs enter their second decade of operation and funding is being allocated to their further development, there is a need for clarifying optimal models of service delivery and evaluating outcomes. Recent research established a working model that defined services and processes underlying effective treatment for pregnant and parenting women with addictions and their children. The present research will explore the component of the model that was rated by stakeholders (clinician, research, administration, policy) as most important: Holistic and Empowering Care for Mom, Baby, and Dyad. This component defined the patient population as well as the vision and values that underlie ideal service delivery. The proposed study will examine the comparative impact of two prominent service delivery models operating in Ontario on parenting and child outcomes, and explore how child (e.g., gender) and maternal (e.g., trauma history) factors influence these relations. This work will contribute to our understanding of effective models of care for pregnant and parenting women with addictions and inform best practice guidelines for the provision of services to a marginalized and understudied population.