Cass County, MI Family Treatment Court

The purpose of the Family Drug Courts Program is to build the capacity of states, state and local courts, units of local government, and federally recognized Indian tribal governments to develop and establish drug courts for substance-abusing adults involved with the family dependency court as a result of child abuse and neglect issues. The program must provide services to the children of the parents in the program as well as to the parents. The program provides seed money, not long-term support. OJJDP expects successful applicants to develop and implement a sustainability plan during the grant period to continue operation of the family drug court when the grant ends. The program is authorized under 42 U.S.C. 3797u, et seq.

The objective of this project is to reduce/prevent juvenile delinquency through the Cass County MI Family Treatment Court (CCFTC). CCFTC serves substance-abusing parents involved in Child Protective Services/foster care, who have abused or neglected a child. Activities include: collaboration; universal drug and alcohol screening; referral and delivery of services to parents and children in the areas of parenting skills; mental and physical health; educational status; parental employment; and family housing status. Additionally, frequent and random drug and alcohol testing; frequent judicial supervision; and swift and appropriate justice (using sanctions and incentives) will be used to provide treatment of sufficient intensity/duration to affect long-term change. Evaluation of performance measures will gauge progress and ensure continuous program improvement. Objectives include: increase and sustain the capacity of CCFTC and Family Drug Courts across the state; reduce substance abuse; drug related activity; and child abuse and neglect. Progress towards short term and intermediate outcomes will be measured by analyzing the number/percent of: clients, graduates, clients exited, universal screens, mentoring and sustainability activities at client and program levels, negative drug screens, recovery related activities, new drug related arrests or charges, new CPS referrals and/or substantiations, and safe/permanent homes for children to reduce/prevent juvenile delinquency. CA/NCF