Over the past years, I have been involved in a number of evaluation of three community-based addictions treatment programs being offered through Renascent, an addictions treatment centre in Toronto. Through collaboration, we completed a realist evaluation of the Essential Family Care program and found that individuals who have the double burden of recovering from a family member’s addiction, as well as recovering from their own addiction, show limited outcomes upon completing the program. These results led to the development of a new program targeting this group of “double burden” clients. I am also involved in the development and implementation of an imbedded mixed methods evaluation process for a Children’s Support Program. My graduate student and I are currently in the process of analyzing data and anticipate finishing this project in early 2015. I have also undertaken an evaluation of individuals voluntarily leaving a 21-day inpatient treatment program and to identify treatment barriers and improve service delivery.
We are also presently working on a realist evaluation of Progress Place, aimed at understanding how and why members recover through the programs offered through Progress Place.
Another project involved the evaluation of the Aboriginal Alcohol and Drug Worker Program (AADWP), delivered to urban First Nations adults in Ontario and overseen by the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centre. Using a mixed-methods, multi-site approach, my graduate student and I completed identified client outcomes, contextual variables, and mechanisms related to change for clients of this program (Davey, McShane, Pulver, McPherson, Firestone, & OFIFC [2014]).