March 2017Vol. 18, No. 1Webinar Series Focuses on Maternal Opioid Use Disorders
The National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare (NCSACW), in partnership with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Children's Bureau, produced a number of webinars focusing on the issue of maternal opioid use disorders and pregnancy. Parts 1 and 2 of "Medication-Assisted Treatment and Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome" highlight a new publication, A Collaborative Approach to the Treatment of Pregnant Women With Opioid Use Disorders: Practice and Policy Recommendations for Child Welfare, Collaborating Medical and Service Providers, which is intended to support and provide resources and tools for developing collaborative practice among the primary systems (i.e., States, Tribes, and communities) that come into contact with pregnant women with opioid use disorders and their infants and families.
This new publication—which has a wide-ranging audience, including child welfare workers, substance use treatment providers, medication-assisted treatment providers, and neonatologists—reports on the findings of a national working group of 40 professionals from across various systems. The participants of the working group met on a regular basis over a 2-year period to determine promising and best practices for pregnant women with opioid use disorders and their infants and families. The document was also largely informed by the experiences of the six sites discussed in part two of the webinar, "Partnering to Treat Pregnant Women With Opioid Disorders: Lessons Learned From a Six Site Initiative."
The six sites discussed in part two are Connecticut, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Jersey, Virginia, and West Virginia. Part two begins with an overview of the Substance-Exposed Infants In-Depth Technical Assistance Initiative, the purpose of which is to strengthen the collaborative capacity of sites to improve the safety, health, and well-being of substance-exposed infants and the recovery of pregnant and parenting women and their families. The methods and findings of each State are then discussed in-depth.
The webinar, "Opioid Use in Pregnancy: A Community's Approach: The Children and Recovering Mothers (CHARM) Collaborative," highlights the goals of the CHARM collaborative, which are to improve the health and safety of babies born to mothers with opioid use disorder. The four targets of this goal are to (1) encourage early prenatal care, (2) reduce cravings and withdrawal using medication-assisted treatment, (3) engage women in substance use counseling, and (4) provide social support and basic needs referrals for the family.
The full webinars are available at https://ncsacw.samhsa.gov/resources/videos-and-webinars/webinars.aspx#medication.
Related Item
NCSACW and the Administration for Children and Families released the guide A Collaborative Approach to the Treatment of Pregnant Women With Opioid Use Disorders. The guide presents specific information on the treatment of pregnant women with opioid use disorders, approaches implemented by organizations across multiple disciplines, a framework to organize these approaches in communities, and a practice guide for community planning. Read more in November's Children's Bureau Express.
