Providing care coordination and treatment services for substance-abusing women in the Work First/New Jersey (TANF) Program.

This paper explores results of a program for substance-abusing welfare recipients in New Jersey. New Jersey hired an outside contractor, placed them in the welfare offices and proactively identified recipients with problems, assessed and placed them in appropriate treatment and then managed their care. The program eased the burden on welfare caseworkers who had had little motivation to help these recipients obtain treatment. While the initiative started slowly, because of concerns of the caseworkers and the recipients, recruitment, assessment and placement rates have continued to grow. In addition, those getting into treatment now appear to be receiving more treatment services as opposed to only detox (which was what they primarily received in the past) with no additional costs to the program. Finally, some preliminary outcomes data indicates improvements in the population in terms of both less drug use and increased employment.