Lummi Nation's Family Drug Court Grant Program

The OJJDP Family Drug Court Program seeks to build the capacity of states, state and local courts, units of local government, and federally recognized tribal governments to sustain existing family drug courts or establish new family drug courts. Category 1: Enhancing Family Drug Courts will support courts that are fully operational (for at least 1 year) to enhance services of existing family drug courts.

The Lummi Family Wellness Court (LFWC) will build a relationship with the State of Washington to hire an additional social worker to better facilitate the timely transfer of eligible cases to the court. This will enable court staff to begin working with parents right away when children are removed from their care, resulting in higher success rates of reunifying children with their parents. One goal of the LFWC program is for the LFWC team to collaborate with the Bellingham Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families to increase the number of Lummi tribal members served by 25 percent and a 10-percent increase every quarter, and to expand the intensive wraparound services for Lummi tribal members who have open dependency cases through the state and have not yet transferred over to LFWC and the Lummi tribal court. A second goal is to align the LFWC program more closely to the family treatment court best practices around organization and structure, focusing mainly on a multidisciplinary and multisystemic collaborative approach; partnerships, community resources, and support; governance structure; shared mission and vision; communication and information sharing; and cross-training and interdisciplinary education. CA/NCF