Abstract

Few community-based substance use treatment programs are available or skilled in treating justice-involved youth, highlighting the need to equip juvenile probation officers with the skills to deliver evidence-based substance use treatment. Contingency management (CM) is evidence-based for treating substance use and shows promise for juvenile probation officers’ successful uptake (positive opinions and trainability). However, research has not examined whether probation officers’ positive beliefs and trainability generalize to target behaviors beyond those displayed by youth, but that nevertheless affect youth outcomes. This study examined probation officers’ perceptions of using CM to engage caregivers and assessed probation officers’ CM knowledge and CM delivery after training in a protocol-specific CM program for caregivers of substance-using youth on probation. Results showed probation officers were ambivalent about CM for caregivers. Results also showed that age, training format and how competency is assessed may be essential to consider. Implications for the dissemination of CM and future research are discussed.

摘要

很少有基于社区的药物滥用治疗方案可以用于治疗涉及司法的青少年，这突出表明需要为青少年缓刑官员提供提供基于证据的药物滥用治疗的技能。应急管理 (CM) 是治疗药物滥用的循证方法，并显示出青少年缓刑官员成功采用的希望（积极意见和可培训性）。然而，研究尚未检验缓刑官员的积极信念和可训练性是否可以推广到青少年所表现出的目标行为，但仍然会影响青少年的结果。这项研究调查了缓刑官员对使用 CM 吸引看护者的看法，并评估了缓刑官员在接受针对缓刑期间药物使用青少年的看护者的特定方案 CM 计划培训后的 CM 知识和 CM 实施情况。结果显示，缓刑官员对于照顾者的 CM 持矛盾态度。结果还表明，年龄、培训形式以及能力评估方式可能是需要考虑的重要因素。讨论了对 CM 传播和未来研究的影响。