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ith_cornellonhill120The Tompkins County Department of Social Services, on behalf of the Family Treatment Court, has been awarded a $225,000 grant by the California-based non-profit Children and Family Futures to support an intensive two-year initiative to provide more comprehensive family-centered care to children, parents, and families affected by substance use disorders and child abuse and neglect.

The competitive two-year grant, one of four such grants awarded nationwide through The Prevention and Family Recovery Project (PFR), were made possible with the support of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Duke Endowment.  The goals of PFR are to demonstrate how a comprehensive family-centered approach—grounded in effective cross-systems collaboration—improves child, parent and family outcomes, particularly in preventing child abuse or neglect, promoting reunification and strengthening parent-child relationships.

Locally, the grant will cover all Department of Social Services’ expenditures in implementing the program, including subcontracts with local human service agencies and required training over the next two years.  Partner subcontracting agencies for the project are the Human Services Coalition of Tompkins County and Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County.

The Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee, meeting Tuesday, recommended that the Legislature authorize DSS to accept the PFR grant and enter into contracts on behalf of the Family Treatment Court for the multi-year PFR program.

Project goals are to improve
  • Communication and collaboration between the Family Treatment Court Team and parenting skills and child development agencies;
  • Systems for service referrals, linkages and follow-up with parenting skills and child development services for Family Treatment Court participants;
  • Available interventions to address the parenting skills and child development needs of Family Treatment Court participants and their families; and
  • Integration of parenting skills, child development and substance abuse treatment information in work with Family Treatment Court participants.

PFR grants also were awarded to family treatment courts in Tucson, AZ. San Francisco, CA, and Lumberton, NC.

“In the end, we envision that the PFR grantees will become flagship collaborative courts that provide leadership and support for comprehensive, integrated family-centered care and advance breakthrough strategies to improve family functioning and well-being,” said Children and Family Futures Director Nancy K. Young.

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