Evaluation of California Access to Recovery Effort (CARE)

California, through its Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs (ADP), is one of 14 states to receive funding from President Bush’s $100 million Access to Recovery pro­gram (ATR), which allows people in need of substance abuse treatment to make individual choices—reflecting their personal values—in their path to recovery (see http://atr.samhsa.gov/).

ATR provides vouchers to clients for purchase of substance abuse clinical treatment and re­covery support services. The goals of the pro­gram are to expand capacity, support client choice, and increase the array of faith-based and community-based providers for clinical treatment and recovery support services.

The California Access to Recovery Effort (CARE) is the state’s ATR project that focuses on youth 12 to 20 years of age residing in Sacramento and Los Angeles counties (N = 8,700). The market­ing plan of CARE is unique in that not only are clients the targets but so are potential service provid­ers, including faith-based providers who, prior to the Access to Recovery Effort, were not eligible for these funds.

The goals of the CARE evaluation are to evaluate and report on the:

• Implementation, operation, and marketing of CARE
• Characteristics of CARE participants and treat­ment outcomes, using existing data sets collected through the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA).