Dr. Kathleen Meyers, Developer of the CASI
Dr. Kathleen Meyers has dedicated her career to clinical research in adolescent substance use disorders (SUD), and is a recognized leader in the assessment and treatment of adolescent SUD, delinquency, and co-morbidity. She is the author of the Comprehensive Adolescent Severity Inventory (CASI), a multidimensional assessment instrument for youth with substance use and mental health disorders used throughout the United States, Canada and abroad. It is used clinically in school systems, drug treatment programs, mental health programs, and juvenile courts, and is a mandated assessment tool in various states. The CASI was recently chosen to be the lead instrument in the Common Assessment Battery for adolescent-funded studies of the National Institute of Drug Abuse’s Clinical Trials Network and the National Criminal Justice Drug Abuse Treatment Research Studies (CJ-DATS) Network.
In 2004, Dr. Meyers received the Research Award of Excellence from the Caron Foundation. Dr. Meyers has a long-standing record of obtaining some of the best follow-up rates in the country exceeding 92% among adolescents in her research studies. She has served on numerous advisory panels, and peer review, institutional review, and editorial review boards. Her research has been funded through the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) and The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). She has consulted with a variety of State Drug and Alcohol Systems in their development of statewide assessment and outcome systems.
Dr. Meyers currently serves as a Senior Research Scientist at the Treatment Research Institute in Philadelphia, is the former Director of Research at the Urban Affairs Coalition in Philadelphia, and the former Vice President of Research at Philadelphia Safe and Sound. She was also an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of NJ, and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Based upon her work adolescents are now able to be properly assessed and appropriately treated, providing them with the opportunity to lead full, healthy lives.