Butler County family drug court triples its docket

The Butler County Family Treatment Drug Court has tripled its docket in less than one year, helping more addicts reunite with their families while they work through addiction issues.

The court was resurrected last summer to help combat the opiate epidemic that is impacting families. When it opened in the Historic Courthouse in August there were five clients — they aren’t called defendants in this supportive setting — on the docket.

Juvenile Court Magistrate Pat Wilkerson said she now has 11 addicted parents — who have lost custody of their children due to drugs — on her main docket Thursday afternoons, four clients who meet with her on Tuesdays and five or six more “waiting in the wings.”

“We’ve had two clean babies born so far, that’s a huge success, that just always makes you feel great…,” Wilkerson said. “I do feel it’s successful so far and these folks are getting a lot of things managed that have been unmanageable for a long time.”

Eventually the court plans to expand to help 45 to 60 people.

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In the wake of the opiate epidemic that has a firm grip on Butler County, and with many adoptions occurring because of parents who can’t stay off drugs, Children Services, the Juvenile Court and mental health and addiction board decided to resurrect the family drug court that was stopped in 2012 when funds dried up.

The court received another five-year, $2.1 million federal grant this past fall.

The program is voluntary and has components of both rewards for successes and sanctions for non-compliance and lasts between 12 and 14 months.

In addition to intensive drug treatment programs — largely paid for with Medicaid dollars — the court helps parents wade through legal problems, get and keep jobs, overcome transportation issues and a host of wraparound support programs.

Last week the commissioners approved declining a bid to provide recovery support services in favor of hiring a full-time court staffer to provide the service. The position will pay about $36,000 and is not eligible for Medicaid reimbursement so it will be covered by the grant.

“We just took a look at what they offered and thought we could do better on our own hiring somebody,” Wilkerson said. “It wasn’t anything that was terribly wrong with it… When we looked at the amount of money and everything else we thought maybe we’d be better off and have more control.”

Children Services has had a lot of success leveraging Medicaid dollars to reinstate and keep existing programs by contracting the services — like Family Preservation and the Family Healing Center — out rather than handling in-house. Medicaid can’t pay for staff.

Children Services Assistant Director Julie Gilbert said they intentionally eschewed Medicaid in this instance.

“What we were looking for was the flexibility to have this position do a multitude of things,” Gilbert said. “So we don’t have to worry about is this a Medicaid-eligible service we’re providing.”

The clients meet with Wilkerson, her coordinator Jolynn Hurwitz, the juvenile court prosecutor, a social worker, representatives from the various agencies where the clients are in treatment and a couple attorneys representing clients and the children once a week to start, and are slowly weened off as they recover. Wilkerson said she believes her first client is on course to graduate from the program in less than a year.

MORE: Butler County family drug court adding counseling services

Darryle Short, who is part of the team from Sojourner Recovery Services, told the Journal-News he was in these clients’ shoes 15 years ago when he was taking every drug on the street, until he met some judges and police in Middletown who changed his life.

He had high praise for the program.

“Coming from an addictive world, you fear the police, you fear the judge, you fear the court system because you think they are so judgmental,” Short said. “But then you get to experience Magistrate Wilkerson, her passion and how she talks to the clients, she gets it, she truly gets it… The way she embraces you, words can’t describe how the clients respond to that, they gravitate to that.”

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