Substance Use Disorder Treatment: Family and Organizational Cultures

Course Summary

Series Overview: This course is part of a 3-course series on Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Family Therapy

Substance use disorders (SUDs) are complex and far reaching, affecting not only the individual with SUD, but also their family. This series provides information that clinicians can use to provide SUD treatments, services, and programs that best meet the needs of those seeking addiction treatment as well as those supporting recovery. The courses in this SUD Treatment and Family Therapy series are: 
• Substance Use Disorder Treatment: Working with Families  
• Substance Use Disorder Treatment: Family Counseling Approaches  
• Substance Use Disorder Treatment: Family and Organizational Cultures  

It is critical to consider individual and family cultures when providing substance use disorder (SUD) treatment for families. The unique features of an individual’s and their family’s culture often have a role in how SUDs affect families and treatment. Cultural factors such as cultural attitudes, spiritual/religious beliefs, and cultural contexts can influence help-seeking behaviors and treatment outcomes. The culture of the organization providing services is also an important consideration in treatment. An organization that adopts a family-centered approach to SUDs treatment will likely be more effective at providing addiction and recovery support services that meet a families’ full range of needs. This learning material uses Chapter 5 (Race/Ethnicity, Sexual Orientation, and Military Status) and Chapter 6 (Administrative and Programmatic Considerations) of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) publication TIP 39 Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Family Therapy.

The purpose of this learning material is to enhance clinician awareness of the roles of diverse family cultural contexts in service provision and intervention adaptions that consider diverse family backgrounds. This learning material explores ways for organizations to add family-based interventions to the existing services already offered to their constituency. Chapter 5 provides suggestions of how to incorporate culture into SUD treatment approaches, general questions to consider when offering SUD treatments to families, and recommendations on how to adapt existing SUD treatments to meet a family’s unique cultural needs. Chapter 6 identifies policies, procedures, and training that administrators and supervisors can implement to facilitate a family-centered culture within their organization. In this learning material, clinicians will learn how to identify ways to adapt family-based SUD treatment approaches, formats, and settings in order to increase the chances of good outcomes when working with racially/ethnically diverse families, LBGT families, and military families. They will also understand how administrators, supervisors, and providers can collaborate to improve the quality of family-based interventions by focusing on a family-centered approach.