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334713
Effects of a Rural Family Drug Treatment Court Collaborative on Child Welfare Outcomes: Comparison using Propensity Score Analysis


Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Sherri L. Green, Research Fellow and Research Assistant Professor, Gillings School of Global Public Health, Department of Maternal and Child Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
McLean D. Pollock, PhD, MSW, LCSW, Department of Maternal and Child Health, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
Background: Family drug treatment courts (FDTC), also known as dependency drug courts, are promising interventions that integrate specialized courts with substance abuse treatment and child welfare services to address the needs of families involved with child welfare because of parental substance use. The few studies that have evaluated the impact of these court system collaborations have shown equivocal results for child welfare outcomes, with mixed results for time spent in foster care and the probability of experiencing maltreatment recurrence. The FDTC program of interest in this study is located in a rural and racially and ethnically diverse community and included development of a new FDTC and addition of gender-, trauma- and culturally-informed evidence based substance abuse services.

Methods: The impact of this rural FDTC collaborative on child welfare outcomes was evaluated using propensity score analysis. The study sample included 208 (mostly American Indian (62%)) families and a comparison group of 169 child welfare involved children.

Results: Findings from the study show that children in the treatment group had longer stays in child welfare custody, but they were substantially less likely to experience future incidents of maltreatment than those in substance involved families without the expanded evidence based substance abuse treatment and FDTC services and focused community collaboration effort. During the study time period, 11% of children in the treatment group experienced a recurrence of substantiated or indicated maltreatment, whereas 71% of children in the comparison group experienced maltreatment recurrence.

Conclusions: The program of interest utilizes a unique collaboration model that integrates local- and state-level partners to address the impact of child maltreatment in families experiencing parental substance abuse. In particular, this program has been found to have a lasting impact on participating families, including reduced likelihood of subsequent child maltreatment and overall improved family wellbeing.

Learning Areas:

Other professions or practice related to public health
Social and behavioral sciences
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health

Learning Objectives:
Describe a robust rural community collaborative model combined with evidence based substance abuse treatment and family drug court strategies that has proven effective in a diverse community. Demonstrate the effectiveness of a rural family drug treatment court collaborative on family well-being and child welfare outcomes. Compare substance abuse treatment as usual outcomes with those from an enhanced community based and gender- and trauma- informed intervention for substance involved families.

Keyword(s): Community-Based Research (CBPR), Treatment System

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the principal investigator and project director for the grant that funded this effort and have over 20 years of experience developing and evaluating multiple grants, community projects, and policy studies in the areas of perinatal and maternal substance use, child welfare, and trauma.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4180.0: Substance use in specific populations