Addiction, Treatment and Recovery

On May 21st, the Foundation was notified that the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation had awarded Betty Ford Institute a grant of $400,000 to evaluate the effectiveness of the Betty Ford Children’s Program. Working with the independent research organization, Treatment Research Institute (TRI) located in Pennsylvania, the goal of the project is to understand whether, to what extent and how, the Betty Ford Children’s Program disrupts the intergenerational cycle of addiction. 

This two-year evaluation research project strives to achieve three specific objectives:

1. Document the degree to which changes occur in youth participants following exposure to the Children’s Program in the following child-related areas: a) knowledge regarding their parent’s addiction; b) the parent-child relationship; and, c) academic and social functioning.
2. Understand the variation in individual “response” to the program based upon baseline child mental health status, history of trauma and severity of parent’s addiction.
3. Describe changes in parent and family functioning using standardized assessment instruments following parental involvement in the Program.

This unique grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation will provide the first science-based evaluation of the Betty Ford Children’s Program.  First offered in 1995 to children of our own patients ages seven to twelve, the Children’s Program has now expanded to serve non-alumni through offices in Dallas/Fort Worth and Denver.

Having served over 13,000 children, the Betty Ford Children’s Program has become the hallmark education, intervention and prevention program in the treatment field.  This award from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation will provide an objective validation of the anecdotal evidence that the program not only touches lives, but changes lives in a positive manner.

Related posts:

1. Betty Ford Center Collaborates With Partners On Science, Research Projects