Centers & Institutes

Boston University Center for Addictions Research & Services

The Boston University Center for Addictions Research & Services, based in the School of Social Work, is committed to addressing a broad range of addiction issues affecting individuals, families, and communities struggling with substance abuse, HIV and AIDS, and access to substance abuse treatment. Through research, community involvement, and teaching, the Center provides the School of Social Work community with opportunities to study and work in the addictions field.

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The Center’s primary activities are: research and evaluation, consultation on clinical services and programming, community development and prevention, and training and education.

Research and Evaluation

Research activities focus on substance abuse issues affecting individuals, families, and communities. Generous funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Massachusetts Department of Public Health, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation enables the Center to examine critical research issues, including:

  • The role of substance abuse treatment in preventing HIV and AIDS
  • Patterns of service utilization among substance users
  • Racial/ethnic disparities in substance abuse treatment
  • Factors affecting access to substance abuse treatment
  • Parental substance abuse and effects on children
  • Methadone maintenance and other medically assisted treatments
  • Assessment of outcomes in substance abuse training
  • Influence of acculturation on use/abuse of alcohol and other drugs
  • Substance abuse and co-occurring psychiatric disorders

Consultation on Clinical Services and Programming

The Center’s consultation and programming activities focus on the needs of substance abuse agencies and methods for improving client care and include:

  • Helping addiction agencies adopt evidence-based treatment practices
  • Adopting and improving culturally competent and responsive substance abuse treatment
  • Developing logic models to guide service delivery
  • Designing improved assessment methods and individualized treatment plans
  • Measuring client outcomes
  • Refining the methods and focus of clinical and administrative supervision

Community Development and Prevention Services

The Center’s community development and prevention services focus on empowering communities, coalitions, and grassroots organizations by helping them build the capacity to address substance abuse and HIV and AIDS problems in ways that are compatible with their culture, physical environment, membership, and goals. Activities include:

  • Assessing and defining community assets, focusing on unidentified resources and supports within neighborhoods and communities
  • Connecting and engaging with informal helping networks such as religious groups, herbalists, beauty parlors, pharmacies, and grocery stores to implement prevention activities
  • Building community strength by utilizing the Positive Youth Development approach to engage and involve youth within the community
  • Using community murals, quilts, theater, and other group activities to assist in healing from violence, disease, trauma, and loss

Institute for Geriatric Social Work

Established in 2002 and funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies, the Institute for Geriatric Social Work (IGSW) is a leader in the effort to build a stronger social work workforce for an aging society. The mission of IGSW is to strengthen the quality of the geriatric workforce through educational innovation, assessment, and policy-relevant research. There are 36,000 IGSW-trained practitioners currently working in the field, and IGSW online training is now available in all 50 states and overseas. Located at the Boston University School of Social Work, IGSW brings together expertise in instructional technology, educational design, testing, and evaluation to improve the preparedness and quality of practice of social workers and other social service practitioners who work with older adults and their families.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), Office of Disability, Aging, and Long-Term Care Policy, reports that 110,000 professional social workers will be needed in long-term care by 2050 if the current ratio of workers to the older adult population remains the same. By continuing to develop its capacity to provide high-quality training to social work and social service practitioners, IGSW is actively addressing this training need.

IGSW has become a national leader in social work online training. Four years in development, the innovative program of Internet-based training uses the best in educational content, technology, and design to meet the diverse learning needs and styles of social work practitioners. IGSW now has a library of more than 30 academically grounded, easily accessible, and competency-based online courses for social workers and other health care professionals, and has also created a 30-hour Online Certificate in Aging program. For information on IGSW’s education programs, please visit igsw/.

IGSW is also committed to supporting policy change that will expand the practice and reimbursement options for social workers, and to conducting scientifically sound research to demonstrate the effectiveness of social work interventions with older people and their families. Among its research and evaluation projects, IGSW completed a large randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of a social work intervention in primary care.

IGSW’s long-range goal remains to create demonstrable improvements in the readiness of the social work and social service workforce to care for older adults, to increase the use of evidence-based interventions by practitioners and agencies alike, and, ultimately, to demonstrate improvements in the lives of older adults as a result of these efforts. Through partnerships with other leading organizations, assistance from the best online training experts, strategic marketing advice, and business leadership, IGSW will strive to continue its education and workplace initiatives.

Dr. Scott Miyake Geron, associate professor of social welfare policy and research at Boston University School of Social Work, is the director and principal investigator of IGSW.