A Web-based Employment Intervention for Drug Court Participants

This twice amended R21 application is submitted by a new investigator and an established research team to conduct a study of a computerized, Web-based employment intervention for female and male drug court participants. The innovative project tailors an employment intervention developed for drug court participants and adapts it for use on the Internet. The project places special emphasis on collecting data to identify and examine important gender differences in employment, barriers to employment, and perceptions of work as well as to understand gender differences in experiences with the Web-based intervention. Although drug treatment is related to desirable employment outcomes, women have not fared as well as men on traditional measures of employment success such as employment status and earnings. The majority of employment interventions for drug abusers have not measured, or even considered, employment barriers and employment needs separately for females and males. After adapting the intervention for the Internet, this project will collect data from both female and male drug abusers and identify differences and commonalities between women and men in employment barriers, employment needs, and other work-related measures. Over the project's two years, a sample of 180 unemployed drug court participants will be recruited during a 15 month period (approximately 12 per month) from a drug court with which the investigators have a strong collaborative relationship. Participants who consent to participate will be interviewed about their employment experiences, drug use, and criminal history. Upon completing the baseline interview, participants will be randomized to a control group (drug court as usual) or to the intervention group (Web-based employment intervention in addition to drug court as usual). Participants in the intervention group will complete a five module intervention grounded in a completed randomized controlled trial of an employment intervention which focused on obtaining, maintaining, and upgrading employment. Follow-up interviews will be conducted at 3 months. The overall aim of this project is to use the findings from a promising randomized controlled trial, adapt it for use on the Internet, and test its effectiveness on unemployed female and male drug abusers. The specific aims are to: (1) Adapt an existing, efficacious employment intervention for unemployed drug court participants for Internet delivery as a Web-based intervention; (2) Evaluate the Web-based intervention's effect on employment outcomes (employment status, days worked, and earnings) and secondary outcomes (drug use and crime); and (3) Test the moderating effects of gender on the intervention's effect on employment and secondary outcomes.