Identifying, Assessing and Treating Children for Substance Use Disorders: Data and Experiences from Across the Globe

Presented at Thessaloniki 2024, on the 27th of June, 2024.

Description:

Identifying, Assessing and Treating Children for Substance Use Disorders: Dat and Experiences from Across the Globe Substance use among children less than 12 years of age is a concerning risk factor for adverse life outcomes, yet no evidence-based treatments exist to effectively treat substance use problems in young children. In 2011, the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs of the US Department of State supported the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in developing and implementing an intervention to reduce substance use and improve outcomes for children in Afghanistan. Dr. Hendree Jones, PI developed the Child Intervention for Living Drug-free (CHILD) program in support of this effort.

Subsequent evaluations of the Afghanistan program demonstrated that children showed significant decreases (all ps<.001) in psychiatric disturbance, anxiety-related emotional disorders, social problems, and increases in quality of life, with gains maintaining at follow-up. It was during this time that a worldwide and ever-growing population of children were identified as using psychoactive substances. To slow this problem, the Child Intervention for Living Drug-Free (CHILD) Curriculum was created by an international panel of experts to train treatment providers on how to screen, assess, and treat children between the ages of 4-12 years of age exposed to or actively using psychoactive substances.

This three-presentation session will review implementation and outcomes of a six-session training of the six courses of the CHILD Curriculum to meet the objective of increasing the participants’ knowledge of the Curriculum’s approach to treating children for substance use problems. It will begin with a presentation of the overview of the history of the project and outcomes of the training, implementation, evaluation and finally the randomized clinical trial of CHILD. The second presentation will review the implementation and outcomes of a hybrid multi-country training of CHILD. The third presentation will summarize and highlight the many interventions to prevent child drug use as well as to treat children with substance use disorders. The session will conclude with a panel discussion to provide the audience with practical tips for addressing the public health issue of child drug use in their own community.

Moderator: Dr. Hendrée Jones (⚑ United States) - University of North Carolina

Presentations:

Hendrée Jones - Treating Children for Substance Use Disorders: Current Evidence and Vision for the Future

María Carmen Sánchez de Molinas - Implementation of The Complete Course of The Child Curriculum Version in Spanish

Manish Kumar - Leading the Way: Developing, Implementing and Evaluating Interventions to Prevent and Treat Children with Substance Use Problems