Center for Behavioral Research and Services
Project BOAST
Project Director: MaryLouise E. Kerwin, Ph.D., BCBA
Project BOAST (Behavioral Office-based Achievement and Success Training) is a clinical intervention project funded by a three-year grant from the New Jersey Health Initiatives Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This project is being implemented at the MatriArk Family Center at Seabrook House in Bridgeton, New Jersey.
Project BOAST in the News (3.12.09)
Project BOAST, which is funded by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is featured on the Rowan University webpage. The project director is MaryLou Kerwin, PhD, BCBA-D. Many Rowan students have received valuable experience in applied behavior analysis through their work on this project. Check it out!
Project Description
Behavioral Office-based Achievement & Success Training (BOAST) will establish a comprehensive, simulated community life within a residential drug treatment program for women and children and provide a structure for clients to learn and practice critical life skills needed for successful, abstinent living in society. This project addresses the NJHI interest area of Vulnerable Populations, specifically pregnant and parenting women with substance use disorders (SUDs) from throughout NJ admitted to Matriark Family Center (MFC) residential program at Seabrook House in Cumberland County. These women often have multiple sources of stress, including low socioeconomic status, single parenthood, lack of social resources and supports, inadequate or unstable housing, and unemployment. The combination of concrete needs, lack of social support, mental health issues, and cognitive ability make these women vulnerable to a myriad of emotional, social, legal, economic, and health problems for them and their children. Therefore, women with SUDs, such as those at MFC, may have fewer and weaker safety nets at a time when they experience multiple stressors and needs.
The proposed intervention replicates and extends the empirical support of Dr. Kenneth Silverman’s Therapeutic Workplace (TW) to initiate and strengthen those behaviors and skills required for successful employment (e.g., typing, data entry, professional demeanor) and a responsible lifestyle (e.g., social skills, managing finances). Given the context of risk for women with SUDs, the intervention is a multicomponent, empirically-supported approach that uses reinforcers and consequences to allow them to build and practice life skills and attitudes (e.g., employment, job skills, drug abstinence, social skills, fiscal management, and quality of life) and to empower these women to conquer the multiple challenges that make them vulnerable. The intervention is delivered within the structure of a simulated workplace as well as throughout daily life in the residential drug treatment program.
Seventy women receiving services at MFC will be enrolled in the BOAST program starting in month 7 of the project; enrollment for clinical services will continue through the end of the project. Women will work 2 hours/weekday for 26 weeks in the BOAST program. Initially, one group of 10-11 clients will participate once a day, 5 days per week from 10 am-noon. In the second year, we anticipate enrolling clients in two separate groups, one in the morning and one in the evening. Women will be eligible for BOAST as soon as they have completed detoxification and are stable as assessed by MFC staff.
Program delivery includes modifying the TW’s software program, adding other components to the intervention, revising the MFC point system, and establishing the physical workplace and store at MFC. The communication strategy involves developing a wide variety of media to recruit potential clients and staff, inform stakeholders about the results of the project, and create a set of materials with website access to provide support and reinforcement of skills learned during the program.
Support for this program was provided in part by a grant from the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through its New Jersey Health Initiatives program.
Page revised
6/3/09
Center for Behavioral Research & Services •abacenter@rowan.edu•856-256-5470
