Building Strong Futures: Increasing FTC Capacity and Scale
Overview
Family treatment courts (FTCs) have improved safety, permanency, well-being, and recovery outcomes for families in the child welfare system associated with parental substance use for over 25 years. Despite these successful outcomes, many FTCs serve a small portion of families that could benefit from this intensive cross-system collaborative approach. The question: Will FTCs remain isolated, small-scale successful projects, or will they expand to meet the need? This Practice Academy course helps teams understand why discussions about capacity, scale, and community need are vital to the future of FTCs. Attendees will learn about the most common challenges FTCs experience when trying to expand their reach; they’ll leave with concrete tools and strategies to close the gap between those served and those in need.
Learning Objectives:
- Summarize why FTC teams must understand their capacity and scale
- Calculate the FTC’s scale and how it relates to the overall community’s need
- Adopt strategies to close the gap between the FTC’s enrollment and the community’s need
This video will highlight why discussions about capacity, scale, and community need are vital to the future of FTCs and for the benefit of families in your communities.
Join the Live Conversation Zoom waiting room early. Starting at 1:30 ET, the video will be played on loop until the Live Conversation begins.
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- The Building Strong Futures Live Conversation on July 25, 2023 featured:
- Honorable Maureen Wood | Juvenile Court Judge | Rockdale County, GA
- Yolanda T. | FTC Peer Specialist | Duval County, FL
- Nicole Lemke | Child and Family Services Specialist Supervisor | Lancaster County, NE
- Amanda Thole | Parent’s and Child’s Attorney | Codington County, SD
- Alexis Balkey | FTC TTA Program Director | Center for Children and Family Futures
- Office Hours with CCFF staff to ask your TA questions!
- The Building Strong Futures Live Conversation on July 25, 2023 featured:
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CCFF hosted a national peer-to-peer idea exchange on August 22, 2023 on the topic of FTC capacity and scale. Practitioners from around the country joined the call to share challenges, barriers, strategies and successes.
- Exploration Tool: Scaling Up Toolkit (best viewed on computer)
- The Scaling Up Toolkit provides a step-by-step process to measure FTC scale and capacity; improve identification, referral, and engagement pathways; and identify concrete action steps to ensure equitable FTC access and increase numbers of families served. Teams will identify significant barriers to increase scale and explore resources to support expansion.
Learning Opportunities
Grantee TTA Projects
OJJDP and CFF currently offer in-depth technical assistance to six Statewide System Improvement Program (SSIP) Awardees: Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, New York, and Guam. Find out more about how these states are implementing systems reform to expand FTCs’ scale and scope—increasing FTCs reach into child welfare and substance use disorder treatment systems and ensuring the delivery of a full range of comprehensive services for families.
In 2016 the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention funded 12 FDCs. This funding opportunity aligns with the national FDC movement working to increase FDC’s capacity and scope of services to children and families. Of the 12 new OJJDP grantees, six sites were awarded implementation funding to create new FDC programs within their jurisdictions and six were awarded enhancement funding to expand the capacity and augment services among their existing FDC programs. Three tribal sites were awarded implementation funding to help bring Tribal Healing to Wellness Courts to tribal jurisdictions.
