23

It has long been recognized that abuse by an intimate partner can have traumatic mental health and substance use effects. Research has found high rates of both past and current intimate partner violence (IPV) among people in substance use disorder and mental health treatment settings. A growing body of evidence has found that abuse is often targeted at a partner’s substance use and mental health in deliberate attempts to undermine and control survivors and keep them from achieving their recovery goals. These forms of abuse, known as substance use coercion and mental health coercion, not only jeopardize the well-being of survivors and their children, but also compromise the effectiveness of mental health and substance use disorder treatment. All of this is further complicated by escalating rates and severity of IPV during the COVID-19 pandemic. This session will provide treatment and recovery specialists with a conceptual framework for understanding survivors’ patterns of substance use within the context of IPV, will prepare practitioners to recognize and respond to substance use coercion and mental health coercion within treatment and recovery services, and will equip practitioners with strategies and resources tobetter serve survivors and their children.

As a result of participating in this session, attendees will be able to:

• Describe coercion related to substance use and mental health within the context of intimate partner violence.
• Become familiar with evidence-supported interventions to treat substance use, mental health, and trauma in the context of intimate partner violence.
• Identify at least three strategies to increase responsiveness to survivors of intimate partner violence within treatment and recovery services.

In addition to our regular CEU approvals which can be found here: https://training.casat.org/about_us; this training is pending approval for Domestic Violence CEUs by the Division of Public and Behavioral Health Bureau of Health Care Quality and Compliance.