Colorado Judicial Department, Denver Juvenile Probation

Denver, CO

Denver Juvenile and Family Treatment Accountability for Safer Communities (TASC), which serves as the substance abuse and mental health component for the Denver Juvenile and District Probation Departments, proposes the Children Affected by Methamphetamine in Denver (CAMDEN) project to expand services for the existing family treatment drug court program to include evidence based programming for children ages 0 – 17 and their families through the addition of the Community Outreach Program – Esperanza (COPE) intervention and the SafeCare home visitation model. This effort will address the immediate needs of children and youth who have been members of methamphetamine abusing families, as well as provide treatment and intervention to help break generational cycles of substance abuse, criminal system involvement and other risk behaviors for parents and caregivers. The proposed project will include partnerships among community and faith- based grassroots service providers, healthcare and children's services agencies, child welfare, justice, law enforcement and child abuse experts to ensure its efficacy and coordination. CAMDEN will serve 200 children and 80 parents/caregivers throughout the lifetime of the project.

Despite the prevalent methamphetamine problem in Denver, the majority of interactions and observations with methamphetamine involved families go unreported. CAMDEN will address the lack of current methods to screen, assess, and treat the children of families involved in the family treatment court for trauma related to parental and caregiver methamphetamine use and abuse, as well as provide services for the parents and caregivers that address parental capabilities. The CAMDEN Project will identify, screen, assess and treat 50 children and youth annually who have been exposed to trauma as the result of parental or caregiver methamphetamine use or abuse; provide services to 20 parents and caregivers annually to increase effective parenting capacity; and broaden the capacity of the Denver justice, law enforcement and treatment community to collaboratively and effectively address the needs of these families. This will be achieved through the following goals: Goal 1: To provide immediate screening and assessment for children and youth with methamphetamine using parents/caregivers involved in the family drug court; Goal 2: To provide evidence-based, culturally competent treatment and follow- up services for trauma-exposed children and youth ages 0 – 17 with methamphetamine abusing parents. Goal 3: To strengthen and support participating parents and caregivers parental capacity through evidence-based home visitation programming.