Trumbull Family Court’s Dependency Treatment program completes initial certification

Staff report

WARREN

Trumbull County Family Court has received initial certification from the Ohio Supreme Court for its 4-year-old Dependency Treatment Court.

The program is a partnership among the Family Court, Trumbull County Children Services agency and Trumbull County Mental Health and Recovery Board. It helps parents with chemical-dependency issues achieve reunification with their children.

It is available to parents who have an open case of child abuse or neglect through children services in which the substance abuse is a reason for their child being removed from the home, the family court says in a press release.

Family court magistrate Deborah E. Marik presides over the court, with Jodie Milhoan handling the court’s day-to-day operations.

Thirty adults — mostly mothers — have participated in the program, which lasts about a year or more. There are eight adults now in the program.

Ohio Supreme Court personnel have assisted with the operation of the Dependency Court since it began, but in 2012, the high court ordered that “specialty docket” courts such as this undergo certification, including an on-site visit.

The Trumbull Dependency Court met the initial requirements by the Jan. 1 deadline and now must undergo the on-site visit and other requirements, Milhoan said.

A Supreme Court grant helped launch the program. Funding from the family court, children services and mental health and recovery board kept it operating after the grant expired, Milhoan said.

Participants attend weekly or monthly confidential sessions at the family court, where chemical-dependency counselors, a CSB caseworker and Magistrate Marik work with the parent on his or her treatment. The court’s judges are Judge Pamela Rintala and Judge Sandra Stabile Harwood.

The sessions sometimes don’t look like typical court hearings because the parents involved sometimes receive advice from a variety of sources, even other parents, Milhoan said.