Alicia Summers

Exploring the Value-Added of Specialized Problem-Solving Courts for Dependency Cases

Expanding the use of problem-solving techniques into other courts and making their use more widespread is considered to hold great promise for improving the judicial branch’s ability to respond positively to the needs of its constituents. But can the core principles of stand-alone specialized drug courts, for example, be productively applied throughout court systems? Which problem-solving principles and practices are more easily applied in traditional court processes and which are less easily applied? Dependency courts or child welfare courts provide a unique opportunity to examine these questions. In this chapter, we provide an orientation to the widely recognized theory of “best practice” framework for dependency case processing as it requires a collaborative problem-solving approach to the resolution of child abuse and neglect cases. We compare and contrast this foundational “best practice” dependency court model with family drug courts (FDCs), which are the most prevalent specialized problem-solving court in the child abuse and neglect case context. We also present research exploring the different procedures and outcomes associated with the implementation of three problem-solving court models in one state. This research provides insight into the operation of problem-solving court features in the dependency court context and sheds light on how best to coordinate between cases handled by a traditional dependency court process and those assigned to specialized models such as FDCs in order to maximize the use of specialized models for those individuals who need them most.