Family Treatment Court

Family Treatment Court in New Hampshire: A New Way to Support Families Impacted by Substance Use

Transcript of video:

I'm Kearsten Simpson, I'm a graduate of Family Treatment Court, a reunified parent. I came into family treatment court, I was incarcerated. I quickly got into rehab with the help of the judge, DCYF and other people involved.   Families, when they first came into family treatment court, they are typically at rock bottom. They can be, homeless. They cannot have transportation. They’re essentially not able to provide safe and stable care for their children.

At first, I felt very defeated, very sad, very alone. And then the more I got to see my children and the more I got to work with providers in FTC and DCYF and build relationships with all of them, the more I started feeling like myself again for the first time in a long time.

Hi, I'm Dan Swegart and I'm the presiding judge of the first Family Treatment Court in New Hampshire here in Sullivan County. FTC uses a team approach that includes the Division for Children, Youth and Families, or DCYF, Court Appointed Special Advocates of New Hampshire, or CASA, parent attorneys, substance use treatment providers, mental health providers, and other community partners. The team works with the family to identify needs early and often, and we provide supportive connections to resources for the family's mental and physical health, including family therapy, parenting skills, housing, finances, and any other needs the family might have.

In my experience, family treatment court addresses the needs of the whole family very carefully, actually. They will help you with anything that you need help with. From apartments to car repairs to schooling to IEPs. Anything you could think of, they are there to help you get through it. And even if you fumble and fall down, they don't judge you. They just help you get back up.

You want to start services and get people the support and help they need immediately. And so, you know, Family Treatment Court is right there at the very first hearing, meeting with that family and ready to rock and roll with getting them into treatment and services.

My children were split up into five different homes, so the process was a little rocky. We went from no communication to the judge quickly getting communication going and then having to work with multiple providers and agencies to be able to do visits. I was given weekly visits, which helped them through it all, and with my hard work and their hard work, my children were home quicker than anybody thought was going to happen, which in the long run helped them because they were able to return home, plus get the counseling and stuff that they needed for the trauma that had happened.

Our goal when we come to Family Treatment Court is to make sure that the families have the services that they need. Our end goal is reunification. The best part about Family Treatment Court, from a child protection standpoint is a fast track to reunification. So the goal is to get families connected with services immediately, make sure that the children are safe, make sure the families have all the support that they need. And the end goal being reunification.

Oftentimes parents will come and they're like, I need to get a job. I need to get stable housing, I need to, there's this long list of things that they've been given that they need to do to reunify with their children, and recovery is on there. By the way, stop using, Family Treatment Court allows for that to be the initial focus. So parents can really focus on the thing that is actually going to allow them to get stable housing, and a job, and reunify with their children.

Having the wraparound approach with FTC, specifically peer support, they've been able to successfully get parents into treatment within days of being referred to FTC. Starting off that treatment early on in that case is the key success for the early reunification that we've been seeing. And it’s been very successful and safe.

I found most helpful about Family Treatment Court that they understand addiction and they really, rally rally around people to try to help you. They give you supports in any way you could possibly need. And they aren't just they're like, they love you and love you through everything.

Family Treatment Court really supports the entire family. They allow for every person's needs to be put on the table and addressed and seen and heard and valued, and that's hugely important. I think sometimes that can be lost when you're don't have a team that's communicating and there’s silos of information. This allows teams to really make sure that the whole family is healing.

Everybody was getting help in different ways, so it wasn’t just on me to get the help and try to, you know, give it to them. We were all getting help and learning together.   And through that, the process of Family Treatment Court, what I see is a parent become more comfortable with the team they're working with. They build trust with lots of different agencies that normally they never would have trusted, and they get to have a conversation with the judge that supports them and builds their confidence in their ability to reunify with their children.

And when they graduate, they call themselves rock stars. Right. And I can speak from experience. I have a patient that calls herself the Rock Star of Family Treatment Court, and she's very proud of that title.

I worked hard, just made it to all my visits and did all my UA’s, did everything I needed to do on my half with the help of a wonderful worker. She was great with me and my children and the help of the judge. The help of TLC. Lots of people were involved to help me through this, and the end result was that I slowly started reunifying and with my kids.

Families, that reunify is the best. It's the best. It’s why we do this job. Nobody wants to see a family have their child removed. It’s probably the worst case scenario. So when we can watch a family get back on track and get to the point where they can successfully reunify with their child. It's. It's the reason why we do this job.   If you want to strike at the generational impact of addiction in our communities, the family is the place to start. FTC is the most effective response to this problem. We owe it to our kids, our families, and to our communities.