OJJDP FY 2016 Family Drug Court Training and Technical Assistance Program

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) envisions a nation where our children are healthy, educated, and free from violence. If they come into contact with the juvenile justice system, the contact should be rare, fair, and beneficial to them. To meet this vision, this program will focus on supporting training and technical assistance that helps states, state courts, local courts, units of local government, and Indian tribal governments develop, maintain, and enhance drug courts for substance-abusing adults who are involved with the family court due to child abuse and/or neglect issues. Authority for this program is found at 42 U.S.C. 3797u-8.

The Center for Children and Family Futures (CCFF) will leverage its existing infrastructure, staff capacity and knowledge, and extensive inventory of policy and practice resources to deliver the highest quality and cost-efficient Family Drug Court (FDC) Training and Technical Assistance (TTA) Program. Since 2009, CCFF has implemented an innovative and efficient FDC TTA Program for OJJDP. CCFF has assessed the needs of FDCs, designed and implemented a FDC web-based Learning Academy and a Peer Learning Court program, provided high-quality TTA to more than 35,000 FDC professionals across the country, launched the Statewide System Reform Program (SSRP) and published Guidance to States: Developing Family Drug Court Guidelines.

CCFF's program goals are: 1) provide TTA to FDC practitioners to develop, maintain and enhance FDCs; 2) provide intensive TTA to support the implementation of the SSRP; and 3) enhance FDC effectiveness by using proven methods to improve outcomes for children and families. CCFF will conduct an environmental scan of TTA needs to inform strategic planning; develop an FDC marketing plan to inform FDCs of available TTA; respond to more than 300 TTA requests; provide six webinars or virtual classes; host and support the online FDC Tutorial; facilitate 25 onsite TA visits; offer four state or regional and four national training programs; provide intensive TTA to support the implementation phase of SSRP; synthesize the experience and lessons from SSRP and widely disseminate these lessons; assist the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP) to develop a FDC track at the NADCP Annual Training Conference in 2017; and track, measure and report semi-annually on all of its FDC TTA Program activities to OJJDP.

CA/NCF