Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services
SUBSTANCE ABUSE SERVICES FOR WOMEN IN TEXAS
At the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS), the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (MHSA) Division oversees funded providers ofsubstance abuseservices. There are several DSHS-funded programs designed specifically for pregnant and parenting females, and programs that allow children to enter treatment with their mother. All DSHS-funded community substance abuse treatment providersare required to use the DSHS electronic clinical management system to submit clinical, demographic, service, and financial data to DSHS. This data is then used to inform policy and practice in behavioral health services. When competitively procuring substance abuseservices, a needs assessment for the State is conducted to determine funding allocations within each Health and Human Service Region, using census and other data sources.
Most of thefunding for substance abuse services is from federal block grant monies,for which addressing women’s treatment needs is a priority. There are several block grant requirements related to expenditures for women’s substance abuse treatment, and prioritization of admission for certain female clients. To this end, DSHS, through the federal Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant, funds several specific programs to meet women’s substance abuse treatment needs:
1.Pregnant and Postpartum Intervention (PPI) Services— aim to prevent or intervene with substance use/abuse by pregnant and postpartum women in order to improve birth outcomes, reduce the number of infants born with fetal alcohol, tobacco or other drug exposure and reduce the number of infants exposed to parental substance use/abuse.
2.Specialized Female Treatment Services— detoxification, residential and outpatient substance abuse treatment services that are provided in a gender-specific, trauma-informed manner to women with children. The effort to create a trauma-informed women’s treatment system has been ongoing for several years, and DSHS is committed to continuing this process. Preliminary data indicates that women’s treatment outcomes are improving statewide and this could be the result of this effort.
3.Women and Children Residential Services— trauma-informed residential substance abuse treatment services in which the mother resides in a facility with her children. Pregnant women near the end of their pregnancy are admitted to these services as well, and continue treatment after childbirth.
DSHS ▪ Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services ▪ BEHAVIORAL HEALTH SERVICES FOR WOMEN IN TEXAS▪ July 27, 2009 1