Ralph Melancon, BCSACProgram DirectorTerrebonne Parish Drug Treatment Court1982 Industrial Blvd.Phone 985-876-2554 Fax 985-876-9036e-mail rjm521@bellsouth.net

Involving the Family in Court Mandated Treatment

Family is often anything but nuclear

Be willing to accept individuals who are not blood relatives

Anyone who is involved in the client’s life can be a powerful treatment resource or a powerful saboteur to treatment

Defining “family” in our treatment context

Engagement: “Do I use honey or vinegar?”

Initial engagement will involve defusing family hostility

Drug court clients are often referred judicially, which means they do not want to be here

Meet them where they are. Client families have dealt with

– Poor grades or learning disabilities– Attendance and other school discipline

problems– Fighting in the neighborhood– Involvement with local law enforcement– Child abuse or neglect investigations

Empower rather than vilify the family member

On “Empowering” the family

Everyone enjoys being truly heard Offer family an opportunity to have a

structured, regularly scheduled support group

A support group can offer:– An opportunity for much needed validation

from program staff and other family members– Peer modeling from other family in the

program– Formulation of a supportive family community

under the guidance of program staff

What about counseling sessions?

Include family in some portion of sessions dependant upon program design

Specifically designate family counseling sessions accounting for half of the total number of sessions

Continue to have specific individual session for the client

Determine which specific modality of family treatment works best for your agency and clients

“FHP’s”: Frequently Handled Problems

Working family members– Arrange counselor shifts to have sessions

available later in the day or on weekends– Conduct session via telephone

Limited access to transportation– Bring counseling session to client’s

homes– Set up satellite counseling sites at local

churches or community centers to conduct sessions

Connection through initial and ongoing assessment

Conduct a thorough assessment of all members of the client family for: health, mental health, educational, and vocational needs.

Make appropriate referrals based on the information gleaned.

Continue to assess family members and respond to changes in the family system via additional referrals to collateral services.

Celebration of Success

Miss no opportunity to reinforce compliance and positive behavior on the part of clients and their families.

Offer some tangible reward for phase advancement: t-shirts, hats, and certificates, nothing too extravagant.

Remember that these families are not likely to have a trophy case full of their family members’ accomplishments.

Hold a “drug free dinner” for those clients and families who have returned clean drug screens for a specified period of time.

The investment of a few pizzas could yield a great result.

Connection Through Activity

Recreational activities can break down some of the barriers among treatment staff, court personnel, clients, and families.

Create a tradition within your program to have an annual or biannual sporting event such as a softball tournament allowing competition among treatment staff, court personnel, and clients.

This is not an effort to tarnish professionalism, however it can demonstrate to clients that staff members are taking an interest in them.

Adolescent males especially would benefit from this due to the action-oriented nature of their emotional connections.

Situations in small groups

Break up into discussion groups and discuss the following situations. Determine how your team would intervene in each situation presented, then report back to the large group.

Situation #1

A client and his single mother have been becoming increasingly non-compliant with the treatment team. This behavior began with missing scheduled treatment sessions and drug screens as well as status hearings. It was discovered that the mother is a heavy cocaine user and has avoided treatment in order to hide her habit.

Possible Solution

This information can be obtained through an ability to periodically drug test family members or confrontation in a family session or home visit.

In this situation we could be able to officially identify the mother’s use and order her to inpatient or outpatient drug treatment.

Rather than penalizing her we gave her an opportunity to change her life.

She may develop as a very active participant in her son’s recovery as well as her own.

Situation #2

A 15 year old client has recently discovered that he will again fail the 9th grade, this would mean his third repeat of the grade.

After learning that he has failed he refuses to return to school and wants to drop out. Mom wants him to stay in school.

This takes place one week after client and mother were present at an attendance hearing in which they were told that if client misses an additional day of school they will both be subject to arrest.

In Louisiana a child must be 16 years of age to quit school with out parental consent as well as to enroll in a GED or vocational / technical program.

As a Drug Court Treatment Team, what do you do?

Possible Solution

A very difficult situation to say the least. Our staff worked out a compromise that all parties could live with. The compromise accomplished three main aims: reduce client’s anxiety regarding his educational environment, allow him to gather skills to build a future, and to keep him engaged in learning activities for an 8 hour day. Our plan was for the client’s mother to function as his instructor in a home schooling program until his 16th birthday when he would enroll in a GED and vocational / technical program.