Family Involvement in Recovery Support and Treatment of Opioid Use Disorders and Other SUDs

The Family Involvement in Recovery Support and Treatment (FIRST) Research Network is a sustainable research network designed to develop and evaluate innovative family-based recovery support services (RSS) across the youth OUD services cascade. FIRST conducts research on promoting family integration in youth OUD services with the goals of increasing service engagement and engendering supportive family environments for youth recovery. It has two specific foci: (1) Innovations in family RSS interventions and metrics to assist youth OUD providers with integrating families in OUD services, and (2) Innovations in measurement of direct-to-family RSS for families of youth with OUD. The network is committed to enhancing existing remote-access RSS for caregivers of youth with SUDs (helpline, parent coaching, mobile messaging) by developing multidimensional metrics for family service engagement and outcomes. At project end FIRST will maintain a sustainable network of family-based RSS research activities, provider training and measurement resources, as well as mentor early-career research scientists in RSS.