Alamance County Family Drug 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 either implement new drug courts or enhance pre-existing drug courts for substance-abusing adults involved with the family dependency court as a result of child abuse and neglect issues. Applicants 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.

In Alamance County, North Carolina, there are 119 children in foster care representing 65 families. Thirty of them have substance abuse issues, mostly involving alcohol, prescription drugs and cocaine. To address the problem, Alamance County is implementing a Family Drug Treatment Court (FTDC) from petitions for custody due to the substance abusing behavior of parents. The focus of the FTDC is to ensure the well-being and safety of children through alcohol and drug treatment, parent training and other services that create safe and stable environments. The program's goals are sobriety for the parents and permanency for the children. The program restructures the local court process to provide access to the identified target population; allow court time and resources for FTDC; modify local court rules to allow case assignments to specific judges; hire personnel and contract for services; arrange for assessments for 20 or more clients; arrange for services; provide assessment, treatment and transportation for 20 families. Progress will be measured by the number of families served; average length of stay in treatment; number of system-level initiatives implemented; percent served by evidence-based programs; percent completing the program; and the percent who re-offend through drug offenses or child protection offenses.

CA/NCF