Grant: Catalyst Grant: Patient-Oriented Research

Motherhood can open a window of opportunity to engage women in substance use treatment. However, fear of intervention by child welfare can hinder this engagement. This fear is well substantiated and carries with it a host of negative health consequences for women (e.g., increased symptoms of depression, anxiety, problematic substance use, risk of mortality). These health needs often go unrecognized and unsupported as the focus is placed on the child. This fear and the stigma experienced being a mother who has experienced substance use problems can also impact on engagement of women in the research process. This experience is crucial to health as it silences the voice of women, potentially reducing the representativeness of our research findings and hindering our ability to improve service quality and equity. We propose to undertake a fully patient-engaged research process to meet the following objectives: We will (1) explore, develop, employ, and evaluate guidelines for creating safe spaces for women with problematic substance use to as participate at community co-researchers; (2) create guidelines for culturally safe research with women with problematic substance use as research participants; (3) apply research guidelines to practice by summarizing key themes across discussions and developing a proposal for future research; and (4) co-create a strategy to mobilize the knowledge learned and guidelines to varied stakeholder audiences, including community members, service providers, academic researchers, and policy makers across health and social services fields. This may improve the validity and representativeness of our research and ultimately improve our ability to promote health and positive parenting outcomes in mothers who experience problematic substance use.