The mission of this program is to enhance infrastructure development for conducting substance abuse research at the Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago. Collaborative research projects will address the impact of drugs and the societal response to drugs on people involved with the criminal justice system to further investigate the associations among and services for substance abuse, criminal offending, co-occurring disorders, medical morbidity, HIV/AIDs, health care disparities, and the impact on families, women and children, and on minority populations.

The specific aims of the collaboration are:

(1) Substance Abuse, Criminal Justice, & Special Populations. Develop a community-based, multi-disciplinary substance abuse research program focused on the confluence of substance abuse, criminal justice, and special populations such as women, those infected with HIV or those with co-occurring disorders.

(2) Organizational Research Focus. Provide an organizational focus that will support multi-disciplinary teams pairing senior faculty, junior faculty, and research assistants in pilot research efforts in the core area, leading to funded R01/R03/R21 proposals for substance abuse research projects.

(3) Collaboration with Substance Abuse Agencies. Increase active collaboration with Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities, Human Resources Development Institute, Healthcare Alternative Systems, Youth Outreach Services, Cermak Health Services, the Women's Treatment Center, the North Lawndale Employment Network, and other substance abuse, mental health, and services providers to enhance the generation of practitioner-useful research, consistent with the mission of the Jane Addams College of Social Work.

(4) Culturally Competent Practice and Research. Promote culturally competent and practice-useful substance abuse research through a Minority Researcher Development Program and a Community Scholar Program.

(5) Active Advisory Panel. Utilize an Advisory Panel consisting of providers, consumers, and senior researchers to provide conceptual guidance and specific expertise, critique research proposals, and identify applications for research.

(6) Faculty Development. Support professional development plans, including multidisciplinary research seminars, conferences, technical assistance, and broad exposure to substance abuse research culture in order to prepare social work faculty to become fully collaborative and independent substance abuse researchers, and make pragmatic and distinguished contributions to the substance abuse field. Three pilot projects will support mentoring of faculty by senior substance abuse researchers and serve as platforms for fully developed research proposals.