Not your average specialty court
A lot of kids in the state's custody don't end up returning home to their parents, but this Pima County court program has an almost 100% reunification rate
We’re doing things a little differently today and bringing you a standalone story. We’ll be back on Monday with another edition of “The Daily Agenda.”
Every year, hundreds of children in Arizona are removed from their homes by the state, leaving their parents to struggle with substance use issues while trying to navigate a complicated system of court dates, caseworkers and additional requirements.
The sad reality is that a lot of the time, these parents don’t get their kids back. But one Pima County court program is bucking that trend.
For more than 20 years, RAISE Family Treatment Court (which stands for “recovery through advocacy, inspiration, support, and empowerment”) has helped families impacted by drug and alcohol issues by connecting parents with the right treatment and helping them navigate the process of reunification.
The idea is simple: Support parents by helping them overcome barriers to success in their recovery and regain custody of their child.
The results speak for themselves. Since 2019, the voluntary program has seen a nearly 100% reunification rate for graduates, which is significantly higher than the reunification rate for all dependency cases in Pima County Juvenile Court.
In the 2022 fiscal year, the overall reunification rate was 58% compared to 100% for RAISE graduates.
And even parents who don’t complete the program see a higher rate of reunification. In recent years, the percentage of all RAISE participants (including those who left the program early) who regained custody of their children has been as high as 84%.
Since 2016, more than 600 parents and nearly 1,000 children have benefitted from the program. And participation by parents has nearly doubled since 2016.
One of the big reasons for RAISE’s success is the program’s hands-on, team-based approach, according to people who have participated in the program.
Kim Gibson knows all about this, having participated in the program a little more than 13 years ago.
“Communicating with (the Department of Child Safety) on the outside is very difficult,” she said. “(RAISE) didn’t have recovery support specialists back then, but I had case support specialists who were just as supportive.”
In a full-circle journey, Gibson is now one of RAISE’s three recovery support specialists who can help participants navigate challenges they might encounter in their sobriety or the court process.
RAISE hired its first recovery support specialist in 2010, and is now looking to hire two more. And while it’s changed in a lot of other ways since then, the level of care and commitment by employees remains the same.
Back in the day
RAISE was created in 2001 and was one of a handful of family treatment courts of its kind in the nation and only the second in Arizona. It was created out of the desire to better address the increasing concern of substance use and its impact to families.
The program has grown and changed over the years, removing barriers to participation and expanding its service base and staff to meet an increasing need. RAISE also makes regular adjustments to programs and staffing based on feedback and data collected from participants.
Parents don’t need any kind of formal referral to the program, although many have signed up after learning about it through word of mouth, with staffers relying on hands-on recruitment. Program supervisor Jenny Zelt says this strategy has resulted in increased inclusivity and participation.
“Specialty courts are really set up to provide participants with the support that they deserve based on the challenges that they’re facing. The kind of help that any of us would envision our closest friend, family member or child would deserve if they were struggling with substance use,” Zelt said.
RAISE is Pima County’s only treatment court that focuses on dependency, or custody, cases. The other specialty courts are for people involved in criminal cases, who are looking to get their charges reduced or dropped. RAISE participants are just trying to get their kids back.
“Being a person in recovery, I feel like the amount of support that we offer as a program is super beneficial to someone who is struggling in their addiction or looking for a path to long-term sobriety,” said Lead Recovery Support Specialist Polly Daws.
Each participant works with a recovery support specialist, who has been in a similar situation and can help them work through challenges, and a case specialist, who helps with their DCS case and care plan. RAISE also has its own co-located unit of DCS caseworkers who oversee the cases of most program participants.
Recovery support specialists see participants weekly and talk to them on the phone as often as needed, sometimes several times a day. And with three on staff, if the participant’s assigned specialist is unavailable, another one is able to step in and help.
“I think that’s a huge part of why people are so successful,” Daws said. “Especially for the people who don’t have that family support.”
RAISE was one of the first family treatment courts in the country to bring on recovery support specialists with lived experience, starting back in 2010.
A different kind of drug court
The voluntary aspect of RAISE is also a big reason for its success, employees say.
“When it’s a personal choice, it makes it more of a thing they want to achieve,” Daws said.
But even when parents choose to get help, the system isn't always as simple as just getting started. Gibson spoke about a participant who spent weeks trying to get enrolled in the system to begin his required drug testing, but no one was calling him back.
“For two months, this guy is in limbo. He wants to know what to do, but he’s lost,” Gibson said.
She stepped in and with the help of RAISE Intake Coordinator Keith Brunson, the man was able to sign up for testing and other services needed to remain compliant with the court. Gibson also helped him find Narcotics Anonymous meetings near his home so he could get started on a recovery program.
“That’s what we do here,” she said.
But it’s not just RAISE employees who contribute to the program’s success, said case specialist Heather Armstrong. Everyone in the system has a role to play.
“The criminal justice system is insanely scary, and most people have had a very scary experience,” Armstrong said. “But our program and specialty court programs in general really take the court hearing and make it more informal. You see the judge on a more personal level.”
While judges are still sitting on the bench and wearing their robes, they’re positive and supportive in family treatment court and share stories about their own lives and experiences. These types of interactions help change people’s perspectives, she said.
There’s also no added pressure to finish within a certain time frame since unlike many specialty court programs, RAISE doesn’t have a set timeline. While the average participation time to hit the program’s five milestones is about a year, a participant can remain in RAISE as long as their dependency case remains open.
Participants also have an optional four-week grace period to help them get on track with their sobriety and recovery.
“You can imagine somebody having their children removed and then still being in the throes of alcoholism or fentanyl use,” Zelt said. “This gives folks four weeks to get their ducks in a row.”
After that, the RAISE milestones used to track progression through the program include receipt of a one-month sobriety coin, the completion of unsupervised parenting time then overnight parenting time, returned placement of the child or children to the home and graduation, which corresponds with the closure of the case.
From there, there’s also an optional post-dependency support period of up to four months. During this time, participants remain in communication with their recovery support specialist and continue to build upon their recovery and reduce their chance of recidivism.
Fitting participants’ needs
There are hundreds of family treatment courts in the U.S., but RAISE is one of eight peer learning courts across the country that have been identified as a good family court treatment model. While several states have mandated one in every county, Arizona isn’t there yet. Only four counties in the state have some version of a program like RAISE.
“Even though we’re not the largest population county in the state, we serve the most customers,” Zelt said. “Our program is much bigger than Maricopa’s program in terms of the number of parents that we serve.”
In recent years, Zelt and others have been mindful about removing barriers that kept people from being able to enroll in the program. In the past, a person had to wait until any legal case related to their substance use was resolved before they could sign up for RAISE. But as industry best practice standards changed, RAISE did, too.
“The sooner we can get a hold of these people, the sooner they can benefit from this program,” said intake specialist Brunson.
Other changes include eliminating the timeline on when a person has to enroll in RAISE and getting rid of the rule that people with prior violent offenses could not participate. Case specialist Armstrong said this rule caused a lot of people, especially men, to be kept out of the program and not for any good reason.
“A lot of (the charges) are historical and a lot are really intertwined with that substance use disorder, so we changed that,” Armstrong said.
But it’s not just a team effort by staffers. Participants support each other, too. RAISE participants take part in mixed sessions at the courthouse with other parents in the program, which the program’s recovery specialists say allows them to build a network of support.
There are as many as eight new dependency petitions filed in Pima County each day, and although not all of them involve substance use, RAISE staffers still have plenty of cases from which to recruit new participants and offer support.
“We don’t want to lose anybody. We don’t want participation in family treatment court to be dependent on the recommendation of a professional,” Zelt said.
Great story - thanks for highlighting this successful program.