Kids in Context

This study aims to add to a deficit research literature at aspects of the adolescents' residential substance use treatment environment associate with engagement. Further, this study sought to explore racialized treatment experiences through the use of novel measures. This study used secondary, de-identified survey data from two sites of one residential treatment program in the same region of the United States. The final sample comprised 65 adolescents ages 13 to 18 who were enrolled in treatment from July to December of 2020. This study evinced several significant associations among social context factors (treatment relationships, program connectedness) and treatment engagement. While the categorical indicator of race and ethnicity did not emerge as a significant variable in this study, significant racialized differences were discovered on most social context variables through novel measures. This study's findings substantiate the importance of continuing the extant deficit investigation of how residential treatment centers' social environment commission or prohibit engagement and therapeutic change. Further, this study's findings affirm the imperative of continuing an intentional investigation of racial and ethnic disparities in engagement and treatment outcomes. This line of inquiry is necessary to ensure that the research literature does not inadvertently commission systemic racism through the promulgation of unsubstantiated assumptions about minoritized subpopulations.