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CWRU's Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences is poised to
become one of the nation's leading centers of dual diagnosis research
as the result of a five-year, $1.9 million grant the school from
the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
The grant will enable the Mandel School to establish a Social
Work Research Development Program (SWRDP) to pursue advanced research
aimed at better understanding the diagnostic and treatment issues
facing individuals who experience dual drug use and mental disorders.
"We are delighted to receive this funding, one of the largest
federal grants with full overhead in the Mandel School's history,"
said Dean Grover C. Gilmore. "As one of only five schools of social
work chosen for a Social Work Research Development Program, it
demonstrates NIDA's confidence in our ability to produce research
that will substantially advance knowledge in the field of dual
diagnosis."
Mark Singer is the director and principal
investigator for the Social Work Research Development Program
the Mandel School will establish with the new grant.
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Mark Singer, program director and principal investigator said,
"This grant puts us into a partnership with NIDA to build our
capacity to perform NIH (National Institutes of Health) level
research in the field of dual diagnoses." NIDA is a division of
the National Institutes of Health.
Seven MSASS faculty members will constitute the core faculty
research team in the program. They will be joined by two faculty
from the CWRU School of Medicine.
"A major element in the program is to link researchers at MSASS
to experts at the medical school who already have NIDA research
support, as well as to outside experts," Singer said.
One of the major uses for the funding will be to support Mandel
School faculty in three pilot research projects. Kathleen Farkas,
associate professor, will investigate dual diagnosed women offenders'
and ex-offenders' suitability for specific types of treatment.
David Biegel, the Henry L. Zucker Professor of Social Work Practice,
will examine the role of family caregivers of women with dual
diagnoses. Elizabeth Tracy, associate professor, will investigate
the social networks and social support among dual diagnosed women.
Results of the pilot studies will be used in future applications
for major NIH research grants.
Lenore A. Kola, dean of graduate studies and MSASS associate
professor, will serve as the grant's internal consultant/expert
on dual diagnosis, and Aloen Townsend, associate professor, will
provide methodological and statistical expertise. Jerry Floersch
and Sue Pearlmutter, MSASS assistant professors, will be awarded
faculty fellowships.
Specific uses for the funding will be:
- Formalizing and expanding the Mandel School's
relationships with medical school faculty working in the dual
diagnosis field
- Funding three pilot studies
- Providing dedicated physical space for the
program at the Cleveland Hearing and Speech Center
- Instituting an annual program of educational
seminars to help program faculty develop additional research
proposals in dual diagnostics
- Hiring a new, tenure-track faculty member
with a background in the study of addictions and mental health
- Establishing faculty research fellowships
to enable junior faculty members to learn more about the dual
diagnosis field
- Enhancing the Mandel School library's resources
in the field of dual diagnosis
- Producing a special issue of the Journal
of Social Work Practice in the Addictions on the topic of
dual diagnosis research
- Establishing consulting relationships with
nationally known experts in the field of dual diagnosis
The NIDA grant builds on a series of previous faculty initiatives
in substance abuse and mental health. In recent years Kola has
secured two significant federal training grants in the field of
substance abuse, while Farkas obtained a three-year grant from
the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
to serve substance abusing mothers and their children.
In addition, in 2001 Kola and Biegel, in partnership with the
Department of Psychiatry at the CWRU medical school, received
funding from the Ohio Department of Mental Health to create an
Ohio Substance Abuse and Mental Illness Coordinating Center of
Excellence. The center of excellence is designed to provide technical
assistance to mental health agencies in Ohio to implement the
New Hampshire/Dartmouth model of dual diagnosis treatment.
"I look forward to our history in this area repeating itself
for many years to come," Gilmore said.
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