ABSTRACT
The present authors, and collaborators, have been carrying out a programme of research which is designed to lead to ways of involving family members that would be suitable for widespread incorporation into routine service provision in the UK. This is in line with the recently published guidelines on Supporting and Involving Carers produced by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA 2008). We have carried out a series of studies which have (i) provided a detailed understanding of the experiences of family members and on that basis developed a stress-strain-coping-support (SSCS) model (Orford 1998; Orford et al. 2005), and (ii) developed and evaluated interventions that involve family members. These interventions have included the 5Step approach, for use by GPs, health visitors and practice nurses in responding to family members (Copello et al. 2000a, 2000b, 2009; Orford et al. 2007a, 2007b; Templeton et al. 2007), and Social Behaviour and Network Therapy (SBNT), developed for the UK Alcohol Treatment Trial (UKATT) in which our group has been a partner (Copello et al. 2002, 2006; Williamson et al. 2007).
