Grantee News: Parents as Teachers Awarded Grant to Support Families Affected by Substance Use Disorder Through Home Visiting Services
Recently, Parents as Teachers National Center announced a $716,000 investment from Elevance Health Foundation to increase support and resources for families affected by substance use disorder (SUD). Over the next three years, Parents as Teachers will pilot a program that will enhance its evidence-based home visiting model to better identify, refer, and serve families impacted by SUD.
A recent survey found that three in ten U.S. adults say they or someone in their family have ever been addicted to opioids, and nearly one in ten adults has lost a family member to drug overdose. With SUD impacting thousands of families every year, Parents as Teachers will use the funding from the Foundation to deploy a SUD screening tool, create a community resource referral toolkit, develop training for its parent educators, and add new SUD-specific content. The organization will partner with a select group of its 900+ affiliates in high SUD-impact areas to pilot the new resources and strategies.
“We are incredibly grateful to the Elevance Health Foundation for this generous grant that will allow us to directly address a critical need for many of the families we serve,” said Constance Gully, president and CEO of Parents as Teachers. “Substance use disorder can have devastating impacts on parents, children, and the family unit. By building our capacity to support these families through tailored resources and strategies, we can help facilitate access to treatment, strengthen the home environment, and promote positive long-term outcomes.”
Over the three-year partnership, Parents as Teachers will work toward better-identifying families affected by SUD, enhancing parent educators’ ability to appropriately adapt services, improving treatment and recovery rates for parents, and fostering stronger parent-child relationships to benefit child development. Data tracked within a select cohort of affiliates with high incidents of SUD will allow for the refinement of new processes and resources.
“We’re seeing more overdose deaths than ever before, and two-thirds of U.S. adults are reporting that they or a family member have been addicted to alcohol or drugs, experienced homelessness due to addiction, or experienced a drug overdose that put them in the hospital,” said Shantanu Agrawal, M.D., Chief Health Officer at Elevance Health. “Substance use disorders are impacting families across the country. That’s why the Elevance Health Foundation is committed to supporting community initiatives that address substance use disorder and its effects on families. Parents as Teachers’ evidence-based home visiting model will provide an ideal platform to deliver these important resources directly into homes and create meaningful impact.”
Upon completion of the three-year pilot, the enhanced SUD program will be available for implementation across the international Parents as Teachers affiliate network serving families in all 50 U.S. states and five other countries. This scalable approach has the potential for long-lasting positive multigenerational change.
To find a program in your area, visit Parents as Techers’ Global Program Locator or sign up for their newsletter to stay informed about future developments. To speak with someone from Parents as Teachers about what this funding means for families they serve, contact peters@collaborativecommunications.com.
