A selected entity of the RFP #23-16-PH Opioid Settlements. This agency was selected and awarded $80,000 to complete work towards opioid response in Cumberland. These funds will be administered by Cumberland County Justice Services. Funding continuation is contingent upon terms of MOU met and reporting indicative of appropriate expenditures. Program will then extend to full $200,000. 

Agency Mission and Vision: As a diversion court, Family Drug Treatment Court, hereinafter referred to ("FDTC") was created to promote the safety and welfare of children and their families and to expedite permanency for children by providing comprehensive case management and treatment services to substances-abusing parents or guardians through a well-designed judicial intervention plan. 

Name of project: FAMILY DRUG TREATMENT COURT- Cumberland County, NC

Option A Strategy 10: Criminal Justice Diverstion Programs

Project Description: The first FDTC program was started in 2004 under the previous Chief District Court Judge, A. Elizabeth Keever. FDTC is a specialty treatment court for cases involving parents and guardiants who are in danger of losing custody of their children because of substance abuse and child neglect issues. The courts help ensure compliance with the Adoption and Safe Families Act. The program helps parents achieve a fundamental change in lifestyle by providing support and assisting them in recovering from drug and/or alcohol addiction. The program is a 12 to 18 month participant commitment and includes participation in substance abuse treatment (including NA/AA meetings), random drug testing, parenting programs, education and job-related programs, court attendance every other week, immediate court sanctions or reward, and monitoring of treatment of activities by social workers and case management. The participant is expected to be drug free and working toward a plan to become a productive, positive member of the community and hoepfully, a fully functioning parent upon graduation from the program. 

Goals of FDTC include: 

• provide parent(s)/guardian(s) with an opportunity to be clean and sober
• provding support to aid them in resisting further criminal activity; and skills that will aid them in leading productive, substance-free and crime-free lives
• helping the parent to become emotionally, financially, and personally self-sufficient
• to increate the personal, familial, and societal accountability of offenders
• helping the parent(s)/guardain(s) develop adequate parenting and "coping" skills to be able to serve as an effective parent on a day-to-day basis and 
• decrease the amount of time needed to determine if reunification is a plausible goal

FDTC is a response to the need for greater accoutnability of parents of absued and/or negleted children and the treatment and justice systems intended to serve them. The program is available to parents who have lost custody of their children or who are in danger of losing custody of their children due to abuse and/or neglect where the courts have jurisdiction over the case and families. Parents must be determined to be addicted or have a high likelihood of addiction to drugs and/or alcohol and they must agree to enter the program. 

FDTC participants are also assessed for domestic violence, trauma and other mental health concerns 

and are referred to treatment. Family Drug Courts follow the same principles as other "problem solving" courts. Participants are provided a court-based case manager who ensures the parents receive treatment and other needed services. Participants must submit to frequent and random urinalysis and/or breathalyzer to determine whether they are becoming and remianing free of drugs and alcohol. They must attend and participate in treatment and are required to compelte other educational programs as prescribed by the court and the Department of Social Services (DSS). FDTC participants are generally required to attend court every two weeks and receive praise and other incentives to maintain their recovery and progress in treatment. although the FDTC cannot promise successful parents that their children will be returned to them, a parent who is successful in the FDTC is much more likely to be determined by DSS and the Abuse, Neglect, and Dependency Court to be fit to have their child(ren) returned. Parents who do not comply with the requirements of the FDTC will be sanctioned by the court and may be ordered to serve jail time. 

FDTC uses a Care Plan and Best Practice Model as a diversion court and has goals that will reduce recidivism and offer recovery from addiction.