Brief Alcohol Interventions in Social Service and Criminal Justice Settings: A Critical Commentary Christiane Sybille Schmidt 1 *, Ruth McGovern 2 , Bernd Schulte 1 , Amy Jane O’Donnell 2 , Kirsten Lehmann 1 , Silke Kuhn 1 , Ingo Scha ¨ fer 1 , Dorothy Newbury-Birch 2 , Peter Anderson 2,3 , Eileen Kaner 2 , and Jens Reimer 1 1 Centre of Interdisciplinary Addiction Research of Hamburg University (CIAR), University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf, Germany 2 Institute of Health and Society, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK 3 Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands * Correspondence to Christiane Sybille Schmidt, Universita ¨ tsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf, Klinik und Poliklinik fu ¨ r Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, Zentrum fu ¨ r Interdisziplina ¨re Suchtforschung der Universita ¨t Hamburg (ZIS), Martinistr. 52, 20246 Hamburg, Germany. E-mail: christiane.schmidt@uke.de Abstract Screening and brief interventions (BI) have been shown to be effective in the management of alcohol consumption for non-treatment-seeking heavy drinkers, who are at physical and social risk, but not yet dependent. The robust evidence base for the effectiveness of BI in primary health care suggests an implementation in other settings could be beneficial. Given the association between alcohol and social problems, social work has a long history of working with persons with alcohol-use disorders, and social workers are often the first service provider to come into contact with heavy-drinking individuals. This critical commentary summarises the existing literature on BI effectiveness in social services and criminal justice settings, and discusses to which extent the social work field might be a promising area for BI delivery. Keywords: screening and brief interventions, alcohol use disorders, social services, criminal justice Accepted: July 2014 # The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved. British Journal of Social Work (2014) 1–11 doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcu100 British Journal of Social Work Advance Access published September 29, 2014 at Staats - und Universitaetsbibliothek Hamburg on September 29, 2014 http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from