UT Austin School of Social Work wins grant to address addiction treatment worker's stress, burnout

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Social work is an important profession, but isn't easy. Stress and burnout abound among workers tackling addiction, according to a spokesperson with The University of Texas at Austin's School of Social Work.

The spokesperson announced Thursday that the National Institute on Drug Abuse, or NIDA, awarded the school's Addiction Research Institute (ARI) with a research grant. That funding will help ARI further study a framework that researchers say could address that stress and burnout.

Called the "Stress First Aid (SFA) framework," it is a "self-care and peer support framework adapted by the researchers behind TxCOPE and leaders in the harm reduction community." TxCOPE, or Texans Connecting Overdose Prevention Efforts, began in 2019.

"Many types of workers ... are on the frontlines of the overdose crisis, providing essential services to persons who use drugs. Their vital roles expose them to high levels of stress," reads a website set up by the research team. "[SFA] is designed to help individuals and teams working in high-stress environments manage stress reactions and promote recovery."

Previously, the framework was tested by a "a small group of organizations in 2024."

Now, with the NIDA's R33 grant award, researchers can scale up to a "large-scale clinical trial" across Texas and four other states, the School of Social Work spokesperson said.

"An R33 award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse will enable ARI and Dell Medical School to conduct a to test the effectiveness of the to address burnout in these vital workers across the HHS Region 6 (Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas)," the spokesperson said.

An R33 grant code is an "Exploratory/Developmental Grants Phase II" grant. It is awarded "for innovative exploratory and development research activities," NIDA said.