Abstract
| The Return to the Circle project was designed to assist the collaborating tribal communities in strengthening their drug and alcohol identification, referral, and treatment systems for youth. The project serves Native American adolescent substance abusers, ages 10-21, residing within the service areas of participating tribes. The project goal is to serve 60 clients per year or 300 clients over the five years of the project. |
Objectives
Enhancing services to Native American Adolescents and their families by providing access to clinicians and traditional practitioners for clients with co-occurring disorders; to develop integrated health teams by improving linkages and liaisons with supportive services to form a whole system of care.
The Return to the Circle project was designed to:
1) Increase/improve access to substance abuse services for Native American Youth.
2) Increase awareness and knowledge of issues impacting the Native American youth, their families, and community.
3) Increase collaboration and coordination of services.
4) Increase information and community knowledge.
Indian Nation Served
5 tribes incl: Odawa, Ottawa, Chippewa, Potawatami
Key Components
Use the Red Cliff Curriculum and also the Anishabek Cultural Assessment tool developed by Eva Petoskey.
Evaluation Design
The evaluation approach proposed for this project is best described as descriptive. Descriptive studies refer to a family of methods that are commonly used to measure (1) program resources, (2) services delivered, (3) program clients and their characteristics, (4) program contexts, and (5) outcome variables. This type of inquiry is best applied to efforts directed at documenting how an agency carried out a program, providing the agency with information that can be used in continuous quality improvement, documenting unforeseen byproducts, and estimating the program effects or outcomes.
The Return to the Circle Program will produce a wide variety of descriptive data about program clients and services and measure the client treatment outcomes primarily through a “before/after” or “pre/post” design. This design compares behaviors or other individual characteristics in the same participants, measured in similar ways before and after the intervention. The project will obtain the “before” treatment data during the intake interview prior to admission to the program. The “after” treatment data will be collected in follow-up interview conducted between 6 and 12 months after intake.
Evaluation Results
The evaluation approach proposed for this project is best described as descriptive. Descriptive studies refer to a family of methods that are commonly used to measure (1) program resources, (2) services delivered, (3) program clients and their characteristics, (4) program contexts, and (5) outcome variables. This type of inquiry is best applied to efforts directed at documenting how an agency carried out a program, providing the agency with information that can be used in continuous quality improvement, documenting unforeseen byproducts, and estimating the program effects or outcomes.
The Return to the Circle Program will produce a wide variety of descriptive data about program clients and services and measure the client treatment outcomes primarily through a “before/after” or “pre/post” design. This design compares behaviors or other individual characteristics in the same participants, measured in similar ways before and after the intervention. The project will obtain the “before” treatment data during the intake interview prior to admission to the program. The “after” treatment data will be collected in follow-up interview conducted between 6 and 12 months after intake.
Products Developed
Red Cliff Curriculum, Anishabek Cultural Assessment on the web at www.fcv.itcmi.org