Sacramento County has implemented collaborative family treatment courts since 2001. The Sacramento County Family Treatment Courts (SCFTC) include a mandatory Dependency Family Treatment Court (DFTC) and a voluntary Early Intervention Family Treatment Court (EIFTC).

The county contracted with CFF to evaluate its FTC programs since their inception. CFF’s plan includes process evaluation activities designed to assess the program efficacy of DFTC and EIFTC — and an outcome evaluation to investigate the effects of participation in the FTC programs on child permanency and safety, as well as parental involvement and engagement in substance use disorder (SUD) treatment.

A unique feature of this evaluation is the wealth of information collected through our longstanding relationship with Sacramento. This allows us to examine long-term outcomes of families who have participated in the county’s FTC programs.

In addition to the overall evaluation, CFF conducted targeted evaluations of two Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) grants that led to the sustainability of the following programs:

• Recovery Opportunities Open for Men (ROOM) for Dads — offering trauma-informed SUD treatment for fathers.
• Recovery Housing for Moms — providing recovery housing support services for mothers and their children.

The evaluations included a process component measuring the program’s context; as well as an outcome component studying the effects of participation in the interventions on child permanency and safety, parent involvement and engagement in SUD treatment, and family functioning and well-being. In addition, these reflected a sub-set of families included in the evaluation of Sacramento’s overall FTC programming.