For some women, substance use can cause significant harm and problems for themselves and for those around them. Problems with substance use among women have well-established links to gendered experiences of trauma, abuse and exploitation, and women deserve to receive the kind of support that is appropriate for them. Our previous research identified that many of the mainstream, mixed-gender treatment services we looked at were not working well for women.
This project set out to explore what a better system of substance use treatment would look like from the perspective of women in treatment. Working with women’s centre and treatment provider The Nelson Trust, we spoke to women accessing treatment in seven different locations, and asked about their experiences of a range of treatment provision and what they wanted from treatment services. We explored their perceptions of effective treatment and what support they would want women to be able to access in an ideal system, summarising these into six key characteristics of effective treatment and recommendations for central government, local authorities and service providers.