Federal Project Grant Award Summary

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), awarded $744,728 to The Leland Stanford Junior University for a two-year project period (April 1, 2026 through March 31, 2028) to develop and test family engagement strategies during early substance use disorder (SUD) treatment. The project delivers a multiphase research initiative designed to identify, evaluate, and optimize interventions that support family members impacted by SUD while enhancing patient treatment retention in community health clinics. Through an iterative stakeholder engagement process with family members and clinic staff, a fractional factorial trial, and a randomized controlled trial, the research generates evidence on effective family engagement approaches that can be integrated with Community Reinforcement and Family Training (CRAFT), an established intervention proven to address the chronic stress, stigma, and social isolation experienced by families affected by substance use.

The specific deliverables include identification of feasible and acceptable family engagement strategies through online collaborative processes with approximately 100 family members and clinic staff; testing of those strategies using experimental design methodologies with an additional 100 participants; and a rigorous randomized controlled trial comparing an optimized intervention combined with CRAFT against usual care across 200 patient-family dyads recruited from community health clinics. The project also includes implementation research components, including qualitative interviews with family members, clinic staff, and financing experts to assess barriers and facilitators to real-world adoption. These products advance the scientific evidence base for engaging families in SUD treatment settings and generate actionable implementation guidance for community health clinics serving populations affected by substance use disorders.