Randomized Controlled Trial of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy for Substance-Use-Disorder-Affected Parents Involved in the Child Welfare System

Objective: Solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) has shown promise as an effective intervention with substance-abusing adults. This study expands on a preliminary study by Kim et al. (2018) by examining the results from the complete sample on substance abuse and trauma-related problems. Method: Child-welfare-involved parents were randomly assigned to either the SFBT (N = 90) or treatment-as-usual (N = 89) control group. Mixed linear models tested changes using intent-to-treat analysis, and effect sizes examined the magnitude of treatment effects. Results: Both the SFBT and control groups decreased on most of the Addiction Severity Index-SR (ASI-SR) measures and on all Trauma Symptom Checklist-40 (TSC-40) measures, indicating improvements. Between-group effect sizes favored the control group for two ASI-SR subscales-medical status and drug use-and favored SFBT for the TSC-40 subscale measures, although none was statistically significant except for the TSC-40 depression subscale. Conduit:tits: Results support the use of SFBT to treat substance abuse and trauma among parents involved in the child welfare system.