Healing Families: Outcomes from a Family Drug Treatment Court

Family drug treatment courts (FDTC) have been acknowledged as a promising intervention for substance‐abusing parents involved in the child welfare system. Over the past decade, the number of FDTC programs has grown substantially, yet questions remain regarding the efficacy of these courts. This study examines the ability of the Snohomish County (WA) FDTC to address the three main goals of the Adoption and Safe Families Act. Utilizing propensity score matching, this study found that participants were more likely to have their children returned, experienced stronger treatment completion rates, and had less use of foster care. Implications for replication and further analysis are discussed.     

Show Me the Money: Child Welfare Cost Savings of a Family Drug Court

Family drug courts are programs that serve the complex needs of families involved with the child welfare system due to parental substance abuse. This article summarizes the results of outcomes and selected costs of a system‐wide reform located in Baltimore, Maryland. Results from this study found that parents served by the program entered treatment faster, stayed in treatment longer, and completed treatment more often than non‐served parents. Children in program families spent less time in foster care and were more likely to be reunified with their biological parents. These outcomes resulted in cost savings, including reduced foster care expenditures.     

Measuring Client Satisfaction and Engagement: The Role of a Mentor Parent Program in Family Drug Treatment Court

Parent engagement is an important intermediate outcome in Family Drug Treatment Court (FDTC) and child welfare services. This study explored the utility and reliability of a client satisfaction and engagement survey designed to measure interim outcomes of a Mentor Parent Program, operating in conjunction with a FDTC. Findings suggest the survey is a useful, parsimonious and reliable tool for measuring key dimensions of parent mentor services including client engagement; client‐centered support and empowerment; and help with systems navigation and accessing resources. The survey may be adapted for use in other FDTC or parent mentor contexts.     

The King County (Washington) Systems Integration Initiative: A First Look at the Kent District Dual System Youth Pilot Program

King County is one of five counties in Washington State participating in the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's Models for Change juvenile justice reform initiative. One key aspect of King County's Models for Change participation involves ongoing “systems integration” work intended to improve how youth who have cross‐over involvement in multiple systems—e.g., juvenile justice, child welfare, education, mental health, and/or others—are handled. These cross‐over cases often present a range of challenges to juvenile courts including substantial risk factors that increase their likelihood of continuing system involvement. This article provides a first look at an emerging pilot project in King County that is intended to improve how cross‐over cases are handled by child welfare and juvenile probation with the longer term goal of improving outcomes for these difficult cases.     

MEASURING PROGRESS IN IMPROVING COURT PROCESSING OF CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT CASES

With all of the changes in federal law relating to child maltreatment, foster care, and adoption, courts have become active partners with child welfare agencies in assuring safety and permanency for children. Outcome measures are needed to track achievement of the distinct goals of courts and those goals they share with child welfare agencies. This article presents a set of measures that focuses on the court contribution to desirable outcomes for children and families. These measures have undergone extensive development, review, and field testing by representatives from several national organizations interested in court reform and child welfare, but they still require more discussion and refinement. Indeed, outcome measures are an essential component of a process of continuing improvement, which means they need to be reviewed periodically to ensure they are valid, reliable, and not redundant.     

The approach in Scotland to child contact disputes involving allegations of domestic abuse

ABSTRACT

This article considers the approach taken in Scotland to the processing of child contact cases in which there are allegations of domestic abuse. Four key features of the processing of cases which may facilitate outcomes that prioritise safety are considered. These are: the availability of legal aid; the cautious process of successive child welfare hearings; the use of child welfare reports; and the taking of the child’s views. All these features occur within a policy context that recognises domestic abuse as gender-based violence and where courts have a statutory duty to protect a child from abuse. Drawing on the author’s court based analysis of papers from 208 child contact disputes and from interviews with sheriffs, this article discusses the strengths and limitations of all four process features in terms of protecting women and children, and the risks to these features posed by perpetually reducing government budgets.     

The Impact of Child‐Parent Psychotherapy on Child Dependency Court Outcomes

Although parental compliance with court orders in child welfare cases is key to achieving physical parent‐child reunification and successful case closure, little research has examined how parent‐child relationship‐focused rehabilitative services uniquely influence case outcomes. This project fills this gap by investigating links between court ordering of and parental participation in Child‐Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) with court outcomes. Data were obtained from court records of 448 court‐involved parents. Hierarchical regressions revealed that greater participation in CPP led to reunification and successful case closure but not faster case closure. Courtroom professionals should consider parent‐child relationship‐based therapies as tools for achieving child welfare goals.     

Zero to Three: Critical Issues for the Juvenile and Family Court

Infants are the fastest growing population in foster care. Without intervention they are at great risk of poor developmental outcomes. Juvenile and family courts have a unique opportunity to make a positive difference in the lives of the babies in their care. This article outlines six critical issues that impact the development of very young children in the child welfare system and recommends strategies that juvenile and family courts can use to address the needs of this most vulnerable population.     

The Greenbook and the Overrepresentation of African American,Hispanic, and Native American Families in the Child Welfare System

Effective Intervention in Domestic Violence & Child Maltreatment Cases: Guidelines for Policy and Practice (the Greenbook) provided a valuable framework for child welfare agencies, domestic violence agencies, and the courts to work together to address the co‐occurrence in families of child maltreatment and domestic violence. It did not specifically address the overrepresentation of families of color in the child welfare system or the disparity of outcomes for these families. Yet the Greenbook’s approach to systems change can be used as a foundation to implement strategies to reduce overrepresentation and to improve safety, permanency, and stability for children and families.     

Stand-alone private antitrust damages: (how) should competition authorities react?

The European Commission has recently set up a framework that facilitates the access to the courts by victims of antitrust injury, even in the absence of a ruling by a competition authority (so-called stand-alone private damages, or SPD, actions). Here, I study a game where both public and private antitrust enforcement play a role. Plaintiffs face information acquisition costs (evidence-gathering) if they want to bring an SPD action, but they do not internalise the opportunity cost of the courts?? resources. First, I show that any gain in deterrence has to be traded off against costly litigation and enforcement costs, and that these tradeoffs are heterogeneous across market sizes. Second, taking the competition authority??s actions as exogenous, SPDs can improve welfare only if the competition authority is sufficiently effective: private damages are a complement to (good) public enforcement, not a substitute. Third, a resource-constrained competition authority, upon the introduction of SPDs, should investigate a larger proportion of industries (even at the cost of a higher error rate). That is, whilst a ??hands-off?? approach might have been warranted absent SPDs, this is no longer true once stand-alone actions are introduced.     

WHAT IF ALL THE MONEY CAME HOME?

Since its inception, the public child support program has functioned primarily as a welfare cost recovery mechanism: $2.1 billion of child support collected annually for current and former welfare families is kept by the government to repay welfare costs. However, Wisconsin research findings suggest that low-income fathers pay more support and are less likely to work in the underground economy when support payments are passed through to their children. Regular support reduces poverty and welfare use, and increases child well-being. A consensus has emerged to reform distribution rules so that more child support is paid to the families, not to the government.     

ARE WE REALLY LOOKING OUT FOR THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD? APPLYING THE NEW ZEALAND MODEL OF FAMILY GROUP CONFERENCES TO CASES OF CHILD NEGLECT IN THE UNITED STATES

This Note advocates for state laws to be amended to implement family group conferencing (FGC) as the first step in cases of alleged child neglect. FGC was developed in New Zealand nearly twenty years ago and have since become a realistic method of balancing the best interests of the children, families, agencies, courts, and communities involved in the child welfare system. A FGC is a meeting among family members and professionals that is conducted in order to develop a plan for a child who is the victim of neglect. FGC places the family at the center of the welfare proceedings and empowers them to reach a solution without having to resort to the often lengthy and expensive adversarial court system. If FGC is incorporated into the child welfare systems throughout the United States, communication between the parents, social services, and the courts could increase, helping families adequately address the problem of neglect and getting the children out of the child welfare system quickly and more efficiently.     

FAMILY GROUP CONFERENCES

Family group conferencing has emerged as a child welfare system–transforming practice that fosters new collaborations between families, child welfare practitioners, and the courts. The key components of the model are explained. This article highlights the strengths and challenges associated with incorporating family group conferencing into traditional child welfare agency and court practice. It suggests future practice considerations and outcome-based study that are necessary to strengthen and sustain family group conferencing as a prevention/intervention strategy.     

Disproportionate Representation: Communities of Color in the Domestic Violence,Juvenile Justice,and Child Welfare Systems

A number of State and Federal surveys show that communities of color are involved with the domestic violence, child welfare, and juvenile justice systems at rates that are disproportionately higher than their population size. As courts are responsible for decisions that could propel families into these systems, it has become increasingly critical that judges become aware of these trends. This article will provide an overview of the current statistics on the disproportionate representation of communities of color in the domestic violence, child welfare, and juvenile justice systems. It will discuss the factors that are contributing to these trends and present preliminary recommendations for judicial leadership and decision making.     

Equal opportunities: protecting the rights of AIDS-linked children in the classroom

Within the past few years a number of children have been excluded from attending public school because they are linked to AIDS. School boards have justified their decisions to exclude these children on the basis that protecting the public's health, safety and welfare outweighs the rights of these children. Most courts have rejected this justification and have held that either under the equal protection clause of the Constitution or section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, children cannot be excluded from the classroom solely because they are linked to AIDS. This Note discusses both section 504 and equal protection analyses used by the courts. When analyzing a school board's decision to exclude an AIDS-linked child from the classroom, most courts have used a higher level of scrutiny and individualized inquiry in order to ensure that the rights of both the AIDS-linked child and his or her uninfected classmates and teachers are protected. After applying these analyses to a hypothetical case, this Note concludes that both section 504 and the equal protection clause ensure that AIDS-linked children will not be barred from the classroom unless the presence of additional factors increases the risk of these children transmitting the virus to others.     

RESPONDING TO THE CALL FOR CHILD CUSTODY EVALUATORS TO JUSTIFY THE REASON FOR THEIR PROFESSIONAL EXISTENCE: SOME THOUGHTS ON KELLY AND RAMSEY (2009)

Kelly and Ramsey (2009 ) propose that it is time to examine the costs and benefits courts and participants derive from child custody evaluations. A structure for a research program was suggested. This article endorses this call for such an examination on the system that provides for forensic mental health evaluations for custody disputes. There is a need to examine the costs and benefits of various types of approaches that are emerging, including the comprehensive evaluation and brief, focused evaluations. This article suggests that there is a need for forensic quality control of the work product that is produced by evaluators. Courts are cognizant of the need to encourage settlement between parties, but they also need to be accurate in making judicial determinations that will be in the best interests of children. Quality evaluations are a cornerstone in working toward this goal. Kelly and Ramsey are mindful of the need for evaluations to facilitate settlement, but also to get it right for the court on accurate predictions about children's developmental outcomes.     

IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES

This article will examine several of the more difficult issues raised by the Freeman case, including the potential conflict between a parent's rights and a child's rights, the concern over legislative intervention in family autonomy, and the obvious struggle the courts are having in making consistent decisions in this area. The focus will be on Canadian child welfare legislation, with particular emphasis on the Nova Scotia legislation, as it relates to the refusal to consent to the medical treatment of a child. Similarly, the case law considered will also be primarily Canadian. The article will concentrate on situations in which the withholding of medical treatment would threaten the life of a child and will discuss the withholding of treatment as it relates to an unborn child, a mentally and/or physically challenged child, and a normal child.     

Professional attitudes regarding treatment and punishment of incest: Comparing police,child welfare,and community mental health

Brief case histories involving incest were presented to police officers, child welfare workers, and community mental health practitioners in a rural area in Canada. Intervention priorities involving “treatment versus punishment” were assessed across the three professional groups for each specific case vignette. Attitudes were assessed on three factors: perpetrator mentally ill rather than criminal, view regarding treatment of victims and mothers, and support for court mandated treatment. Police and community mental health practitioners had significantly different attitudes as to whether perpetrators of child sexual abuse should be viewed more as criminals or as mentally disturbed. Both mental health and child welfare staff differed significantly from police with a less punitive view towards victims and their mothers. All three profressional groups showed no difference in their modest endorsement of the use of mandated treatment by the courts. Gender was not found to influence response to case vignettes.     

Family‐Centered Practice in Florida: Family Court Actions and Perceptions

Family and dependency courts can become valuable partners in efforts to stem the tide of child maltreatment using a family‐centered strategy. Florida's response to a 2008 federal Child and Family Services Review included a commitment to implement family‐centered practice in child protection services and the courts that hear these cases. Evidence of this implementation was documented in a formative evaluation conducted in 2010 and 2011. Findings based on interviews with dependency judges, Children's Legal Services attorneys, and Guardian ad Litem volunteers provide useful insights on how these practices were perceived and implemented.