Idaho Child Protection Drug Court Enhancement Project

The Family Drug Courts program builds the capacity of states, state and local courts, units of local government, and federally recognized tribal governments to either implement new drug courts or enhance pre-existing drug courts for individuals with substance abuse disorders or substance use and co-occurring mental health disorders, including histories of trauma, who are involved with the family dependency court as a result of child abuse, neglect, and other parenting issues. Category 2: Enhancement grants are available to jurisdictions with a fully operational (for at least 1 year) family drug court that propose to enhance the operation of the court.

The purpose of this project is to expand the capacity of two operational family dependency treatment courts (FDTC) located in adjoining judicial districts in Idaho and to enhance the services to the parents and their children. The population to be served is families with substance use, some with co-occurring mental disorders, residing in Bannock, Jerome, Twin Falls counties, or within reasonable proximity to the services to be provided. Only non-violent individuals per federal definition will be included. Goals of the project are (1) to protect children and reunite families; (2) assist parents achieve stable recovery from substance abuse; and (3) enhance the courts' ability to effectively address the needs of families coming before the court for child abuse and neglect that have substance abuse and co-occurring mental disorders. Objectives to achieve the specified goals include: expand the number of parents served from 40 per year to 60 per year; increase the percentage of children reunited with their parent(s); provide comprehensive substance abuse, mental health and trauma assessment to parents; deliver evidence-based substance abuse treatment to parents; provide Differentiated Case Management training to judges and team members; reduce the time from parental assessment to treatment entry; provide Recovery Coach services to parents; provide Trauma Screening and Trauma Services to parents; provide uniform mental health screening to parents; provide each child with a developmental assessment, an individualized service plan and needed services, monitored by the court; and provide each parent with a vocational/educational assessment and services to enable self-reliance and family economic stability. Key system performance variables will be measured including percentage of cases screened for substance abuse, mental disorders and trauma, time from case opening to completion of assessment, time from completion of assessment to treatment entry, time of child in out of home care, and time from case opening to family reunification.
CA/NCF