Treating Substance‐Abusing Parents: A Study of the Pima County Family Drug Court Approach

Abstract

A geographical comparison‐group design was used to examine the effectiveness of the Pima County (Arizona) Court Assisted Treatment Services (CATS) program and its drug court intervention. The study compared the summary statistics for the volunteers to the family drug court (n=33) with a treatment‐refusal group (n=42) and a treatment‐as‐usual group (n=45) from a matched geographical area. The findings of this study indicate that the family drug court group had higher engagement and completion rates of residential treatment than was true of the other comparison groups. In addition, the volunteers to the family drug court group had fewer parental rights severed, a higher percentage of permanency decisions reached within one year, earlier permanency decisions, and a higher percentage of children placed with their parents. The implications of this study's findings for future evaluations of the components of a family drug court intervention are discussed.

Empirical evidence on legal levers aimed at addressing child maltreatment

“…Of the two, there is more evidence that FDTCs increase reunification rates; nine studies found an increase in reunification for participants (Ashford, 2004;Boles, Young, Moore, & DiPirro-Beard, 2007;Burrus, Mackin, & Finigan, 2011;Chuang, Moore, Barrett, & Young, 2012;Dakof et al, 2010;Gifford, Eldred, Vernerey, & Sloan, 2014;Green, Furrer, Worcel, Burrus, & Finigan, 2009;Green, Rockhill, & Furrer, 2007b;Worcel, Furrer, Green, Burrus, & Finigan, 2008). Several studies found reduced time spent in foster care for children of participants (Bruns, Pullmann, Weathers, Wirschem, & Murphy, 2012;Burrus et al, 2011;Gifford et al, 2014;Green, Furrer, Worcel, Burrus, & Finigan, 2007a;Worcel et al, 2008), although one study reported longer stays (Chuang et al, 2012) and another found the effect varied by court (Green et al, 2009).…”

Do Specialty Courts Achieve Better Outcomes for Children in Foster Care Than General Courts?

“…Another limitation of prior studies is their limited geographic scope. For example, using data from a single county study, Ashford (2004) reported that the children of parents who participated in a family drug court program received a permanency decision sooner and were more likely to be reunified with their families than children of parents who either refused treatment or participated in the ''treatment as usual'' group. A study using data from a single city documented that children of families in a family drug court had a mean stay in foster care of 50 days less than the comparison group and were more likely to be reunified with their parents (Burrus, Making, and Finigan 2011).…”

Comparing the Effects of Judicial Versus Child Protective Service Relationships on Parental Attitudes in the Juvenile Dependency Process

“…The family drug court (FDC) approach is a procedural innovation in child welfare that is used in many jurisdictions to address parental alcohol and other drug abuse problems (Ashford, 2004;Young, 2003;Young, Gardner, & Dennis, 1998). A national survey of professionals employed in child welfare found that nearly 80% of the respondents said that "substance abuse causes or exacerbates most cases of child abuse that they face" (National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse [CASA], 1999, p. ii).…”

“…Although many jurisdictions have created FDCs, the elements required to validly implement this approach have been subjected to minimal empirical scrutiny (Ashford, 2004). A key assumption in most FDCs is that compliance with court orders for substance abuse treatment will increase because parents have to appear weekly before a judge (Edwards, 2003).…”

“…Namely, do relational or instrumental considerations account for more of the variation in attitudes of parents in the juvenile dependency process? Inasmuch as FDCs are better at engaging and retaining parents in treatment (Ashford, 2004;Young, 2003;Ashford & Holschuh, 2006), we also hypothesized that judicial rather than CPS relationships would account for most of the relational contributions to variation in parental perceptions of fairness, trustworthiness, and satisfaction with the juvenile dependency court system.…”