Ohio Family Drug Court Systems Reform

OJJDP is seeking to infuse effective family drug court practices established at the local level and institutionalize them in the larger state-level child welfare, substance abuse treatment, and court systems. The purpose of this state systems reform effort is to expand the scale of family drug courts (i.e., penetration rate of the larger child welfare and substance abuse treatment systems) and scope (i.e., range of comprehensive services for families) to serve all families in the child welfare system affected by parental substance use disorders more effectively and improve child, parent, and family outcomes.

The problem to be addressed by this project is the lack of access to existing family drug courts, as well as other treatment services provided through these family drug courts, to parents who are involved in multiple systems of care including Ohios child welfare and substance abuse treatment systems. Ohios family drug treatment courts (FDTCs) are not being utilized effectively as a resource to assist the child welfare and substance abuse treatment systems in providing services to this population. The Supreme Court of Ohio Statewide System-wide Family Drug Court will: (1) identify parents with substance abuse issues who are in the child welfare system that are not participants in the family drug courts; (2) explore the expansion of family drug courts in other counties in Ohio; (3) implement the use of a data dashboard which is aggregate data from the child welfare system; (4) enhance the case management system capacity of family drug courts in Ohio through utilization of existing vendors and developing data standards that courts may use to update their software; (5) enhance service coordination and data sharing capabilities to improve overall delivery models to promote holistic responses to behavioral health needs; and (6) improve infrastructure and capacity of key stakeholders including Supreme Court of Ohio, Department of Job and Family Services, and Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services to enhance service coordination for children and youth with multi-system needs. CA/NCF