Santa Barbara County Alcohol, Drug, and Mental Health Services

Santa Barbara, CA

The Expansion of the Family Treatment Drug Court (FTDC) in the County of Santa Barbara is to provide additional coordinated services for children, their caregivers and families affected by methamphetamine use and abuse. The ramifications of methamphetamine substance abuse for families, pregnant women, children, and the entire community require a concerted effort to develop a continuum of services, including access to integrated substance abuse and mental health treatment and extensive treatment support services for children, to address the multiple needs of this population. With leadership from the Department of Alcohol, Drug, and Mental Health Services, the Family Treatment Drug Court project will coordinate activities directed toward the children of families affected by methamphetamine through an integrated system of care with child welfare services, children's programs, schools and family treatment specialists. Elements of FTDC of particular significance to the expansion initiative include:

1. Providing mental health and supportive services for children, and their care givers.
2. Providing transitional residential services, and supportive housing for pregnant women and their minor children in lieu of foster care placement.
3. Reunification of non-custodial children with their families.
4. Identification, implementation and evaluation of empirically-based treatment methodologies with an emphasis on trauma-informed treatment.
5. Evaluation involving consumers, provide real-time feedback for program improvement, collect and report required outcome measures.

These activities rely on the collaboration of agencies dedicated to promoting the prevention of and recovery from addiction and mental health conditions among individuals, families, and communities through leadership, engaging in creative systems change, and delivering state of the art, culturally competent services. The FTDC including expanded services for children is the result of thoughtful planning and a commitment to working cooperatively under the daily management of a Service Coordinator to ensure that existing resources are made available to participants in an integrated, streamlined fashion.

This FTDC system entails in-depth assessment, service delivery, and evaluation which take into account the participant's culture, ethnicity, religion, race, gender, socioeconomic status, language, sexual orientation, geographical origin, neighborhood location and immigration status. In order to help ensure cultural competence, the system will emphasize active involvement of parents, children and extended families, integrated service delivery across stakeholder organizations, and ongoing assessment and access to tightly-linked supportive services that result in individually tailored care and services required by participants. Santa Barbara is requesting $370,000 for expansion of the Family Treatment Drug Court. Existing relationships and the resources available through involved organizations, including community-based service providers, Child Welfare and area hospitals and clinics, ensure timely implementation of this proposed effort.