Human Services Technology

Online discussion forums allow those in addiction recovery to seek help through text-based messages, including when facing triggers to drink or use drugs. Trained staff (or "moderators") may participate within these forums to offer guidance and support when participants are struggling but must expend considerable effort to continually review new content. . .
This paper aimed to investigate whether computational linguistics and supervised machine learning can be applied to successfully flag, in real time, those discussion forum messages that moderators find most concerning.

Family-based in-home treatment can effectively meet the needs of mothers and fathers struggling with the dual challenges of substance abuse recovery and parenting infants and toddlers. This article describes one such program, Family-Based Recovery (FBR), which integrates substance abuse treatment for parents and infant mental health intervention with the goal of preventing child maltreatment and family disruption. Program design, implementation, and results are provided. Outcome data suggest that FBR is a promising model.

Behavioral couples therapy (BCT) for substance use disorder shares similar intervention strategies with empirically supported couples therapies for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Like couples‐based PTSD therapies, BCT includes interventions that may help to improve PTSD, such as increasing positive behavioral exchanges and improving communication. . .We conducted a secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial comparing individually based treatment (IBT) to BCT plus IBT (BCT+IBT) for women with drug use disorders. . . [from abstract]