Rhode Island Family Treatment Drug Court

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 goals and objectives of the Rhode Island FDC are: to protect children whose health and welfare may be adversely affected by parental substance use; enhance parental capacity to meet their children's needs; and expedite permanency for children in state care. The Rhode Island FDC accomplishes this by identifying substance-involved parents, developing comprehensive multi-disciplinary case plans in collaboration with child welfare, helping participants access treatment and other services, and measuring progress through intensive follow-up, service provider reports, repeated measure surveys, and frequent court supervision of court orders. The independent evaluator will be responsible for supervision of all data collection, data quality assurance, data input, data analysis and reporting as described in our proposal. This project will expand the Court by increasing capacity from the current twenty-five cases to forty-five cases increasing care coordination services; providing trauma-informed practices; and, enhancing services by implementing a Peer-to-Peer Recovery Coach component that will develop a long-term relationship (continuing after graduation) with the program participants.
CA/NCF