Women who have alcohol and drug use problems and their children often need a lot of support from different programs and services. And yet it can be difficult to know where to go to find these services. Service providers and organizations can give referrals and information and even help plan services, but only when they are aware of the other agencies and have relationships with them. Women who have alcohol and drug use problems and their children often need a lot of support from different programs and services. And yet it can be difficult to know where to go to find these services. Service providers and organizations can give referrals and information and even help plan services, but only when they are aware of the other agencies and have relationships with them.
To find out what types of partnerships exist between different Canadian agencies that provide services to women who have alcohol and drug use problems, and their children, researchers used a process called social network analysis. They sent an online survey to 363 programs in 270 agencies listed in the National Directory of Drug and Alcohol Abuse Treatment. The participants were asked to list up to six community partners with which they had a relationship.
The researchers found more than 1,000 partnerships between the agencies they looked at across Canada. There were no partnerships between agencies located in different provinces, suggesting that we need ways for agencies in different provinces to share knowledge and resources.
You can read the full Research Snapshot on the EENet website.
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