Cass County Family Treatment Court

The Drug Court Discretionary Grant Program is designed to assist states, state courts, local courts, units of local government, and Indian tribal governments in developing and establishing drug courts for substance-abusing adult and juvenile offenders. Drug court programs funded by the Drug Court Discretionary Grant Program are required by law to target nonviolent offenders. The Program supports the following activities: Adult drug court implementation, Juvenile drug court implementation, Family drug court implementation, Single jurisdiction drug court enhancement, Statewide drug court enhancement, and planning efforts.

The Cass County Family Treatment Court program will provide participants access to a continuum of alcohol, drug, and related treatment and rehabilitation services. Eligible participants will be identified early in the process and promptly placed into the program. Parents who are potentially eligible will undergo both legal (e.g., current charge, criminal history, circumstances of offense) and clinical screening to determine their eligibility. Seven days is the anticipated average length of time between adjudication and enrollment of eligible participants. The planned length of program participation is 12 months. The program will integrate alcohol and other drug treatment services with justice system case processing. All agency treatment plans, including the child protective services plan will be incorporated into one comprehensive, individualized treatment plan for each participant and their family and will address the participant's strengths and needs. The treatment protocol will include a phase structure and the primary focus of phase one will be on sobriety. Participants who achieve a minimum of 60 days of sobriety and adhere to their treatment plan will move to phase two. In this phase, parenting education will be provided with continued emphasis on sobriety. Phase three will begin after a minimum of 120 days of sobriety and successful completion of all goals and the focus will be on permanency planning. Process and outcome evaluations will be conducted to assess the effectiveness of the program and to change and improve the court's operations and ability to meet goals and objectives.

CA/NCF