Project goals were to conduct drug treatment research and to create new treatment slots for women and their children. Funded in 1989 and 1990, the projects became known as the Perinatal-20 Treatment Research Demonstration Program. Each of 20 projects scientifically evaluated either a comprehensive treatment program composed of an integrated system of services or a specific therapeutic intervention embedded in a comprehensive continuum of care. In addition, each project targeted either the drug-abusing women of childbearing age in treatment with her children (predominantly pregnant or postpartum) or the woman in treatment without her children. Research questions focused on the differential effectiveness of the two types of treatment. Experiences of four projects in Illinois, California, Maryland, and Washington demonstrated potential barriers to the implementation of community-based treatment research programs. These barriers concerned program implementation, budget constraints, information ownership, treatment site staffing, collaboration in subject referrals, random assignment and comparison groups, providing transportation and clinic-based child care, delivering home-based services, and program evaluation and subject assessment. The four projects showed that changing drug use behavior in the community where a woman lives is important. 8 references