The Sacramento Dependency Drug Court: Development and Outcomes

Dependency Drug Courts (DDCs) are a growing method of addressing the functional status and reunification success of families involved in child welfare and affected by substance use disorders. Despite widespread interest in DDCs, few evaluations have appeared in the literature to help inform the disc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Child maltreatment 2007-05, Vol.12 (2), p.161-171
Main Authors: Boles, Sharon M., Young, Nancy K., Moore, Toni, DiPirro-Beard, Sharon
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Analysis of Variance
Biological and medical sciences
California
Child
Child Welfare
Children
Clinical outcomes
Courts
Dependency
Drug abuse
Drug addicts
Drug courts
drug dependency
Family
Family environment. Family history
Functional status
Humans
Jurisprudence
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Parents
Participation
Program Evaluation
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Recidivism
Recurrence
Reunification
Social psychiatry. Ethnopsychiatry
Substance abuse
Substance use disorder
Substance-Related Disorders - prevention & control
Substance-Related Disorders - rehabilitation
Substance-Related Disorders - therapy
Treatment Outcome
Victimology
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Summary:Dependency Drug Courts (DDCs) are a growing method of addressing the functional status and reunification success of families involved in child welfare and affected by substance use disorders. Despite widespread interest in DDCs, few evaluations have appeared in the literature to help inform the discussion about their effectiveness. This article provides a description of various types of DDCs and reports 24-month reunification rates from the Sacramento DDC. Results indicated that DDC participants had higher rates of treatment participation than did comparison participants. In addition, at 24 months, 42% of the DDC children had reunified versus 27.2% of the comparison children. There were no differences in treatment completion or child reunification rates by parent's primary drug problem. Rates of recidivism were extremely low for both the DDC and comparison groups and did not differ significantly. The results of the present study are encouraging and suggest that rigorous, controlled studies are merited to further evaluate the effectiveness of DDCs.
ISSN:1077-5595
1552-6119
DOI:10.1177/1077559507300643