This brief explores participant experiences with elements of trauma-informed care in the Tompkins County Family Treatment Court.

1. RESEARCH BRIEF SERIES
Tompkins County Family Treatment Court
Trauma-Informed Care Opioids and Family Life Project
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Tompkins Family Treatment Court (FTC) provides assessment, referrals to services, and ongoing
monitoring for families involved in neglect proceedings related to parental substance misuse. Researchers
from the Cornell Project 2Gen Opioids and Family Life Project interviewed 21 current and former
participants to learn about their experiences with the program. The sample of 15 women and six men1
included respondents from before and after the Court implemented a series of changes—including a
transition from phases to more clearly defined milestones—in an effort to be more trauma-informed. This
brief explores participant experiences with elements of trauma-informed care2
in Family Treatment Court:
• Safety Beyond widespread praise for the Court’s “Taking Care of Me” milestone, there was notable
variation in the extent to which participants felt Family Treatment Court ensured their physical and
emotional safety. Several respondents described threats posed by abusive or potentially abusive
partners or exes. Some participants also felt they were a danger to themselves in times of distress.
Custody loss and separation were extremely emotionally traumatic for parents.
• Transparency and Trustworthiness Participants generally felt that Family Treatment Court was
transparent. They found most expectations clear and their limited confusions easy to clarify. Court
milestones were central to perceptions of transparency. A subset of respondents identified select
instances they believed the Court was purposefully not transparent for participants’ benefit.
Sometimes, the Court’s conflicting roles of support and surveillance could make it harder to trust.
• Fairness Sometimes respondents resented the Court for applying standards inconsistently. Other
times, they faulted the Court for not attending more closely to the nuances of individual cases. Many
criticized the Court’s drug screens, citing faulty tests and unfair penalties faced for questionable
results. But while respondents sometimes perceived mismatches between their actions and the
Court’s reactions, most did not believe their social identities influenced how the Court treated them.
• Peer Support While some Court participants relied on each other for support and motivation, many
others felt peer relationships invited drama or put them at risk for relapse. Respondents who
avoided fellow Court participants found alternative sources of support in groups like Alcoholics and
Narcotics Anonymous, or outside the recovery community altogether.
• Collaboration and Empowerment Family Treatment Court participants’ experiences of agency—the
degree to which they felt involved in decision-making and able to exert control over their cases—
varied widely, both across cases and within them. Several respondents reported a lack of control, but
seemed to feel that it was acceptable, or even appropriate. Many participants felt their degree of
control and the role they played in making decisions about their case increased, appropriately, as
they progressed through the program.
1
In addition to skewing female, the sample was also predominantly white.
2
The elements discussed here map closely but not exactly onto the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s
six key principles of trauma-informed care: https://ncsacw.samhsa.gov/userfiles/files/SAMHSA_Trauma.pdf.

2. SAFETY
Family Treatment Court’s “Taking Care of Me” milestone promoted feelings of safety and well-being among
program participants. Its appointment requirements taught them to attend to aspects of their health they
had often neglected while using. As one participant noted, “I believe that's a good milestone to have.
Because you're – as an addict . . . you need to make sure that you're – that [using] hasn't damage damaged
your body.”
Beyond widespread praise for “Taking Care of Me,” there was notable variation in the extent to which
participants felt Family Treatment Court ensured their physical and emotional safety. Several respondents
described threats posed to themselves or others by abusive or potentially abusive partners or exes. Feelings
of safety—or lack thereof—in the face of these threats were often tied to orders of protection. One
respondent praised the Court for helping participants who needed OPs secure them, but several others
faulted the Court for failing to effectively address OP violations. For example, one respondent reported FTC
allowed the man whom a friend and fellow participant had an OP against to be in the courtroom while the
friend was there, which “really tore [the friend] down.” Another described the Court’s limited response
when the person they had an OP against kept showing up at the same weekly meetings: “I kept telling them
that and they're like, oh, well just schedule different times, make sure you two don't see each other. And
then [the aggressor] would change [their] time.”
Some participants also felt they were a danger to themselves in times of distress, and they held the Court
responsible for this. For example, one participant remembered learning their graduation had been
postponed:
“The day of graduation they told me. You know, that hurt me. That was extreme. I remember
crossing the street without looking both ways . . . That's how I felt. I just felt like I didn't care . . . I've
worked so hard and this is what they do to me. I felt like I was walking off a cliff.”
Another recalled having their children taken away a second time after a drug screen they maintained was a
false positive:
“I wanted to run my car into a tree after [they] did that to me . . . Like, you can't let somebody go and
get behind a wheel. I couldn't even see out of my eyes, that's how bad I was crying. And they let me
go drive, in a state of mind that I shouldn't have been in.”
Losing custody was emotionally traumatic for many parents. While Child Protective Services was responsible
for initially removing children, respondents frequently discussed both removal and the Court-monitored
period of separation that followed in the context of FTC. For example, one parent reflected: “What you feel
like when you enter the program is you feel threatened. You feel like your kids are being dangled over your
head.” Another echoed, “they hang your kids over your head . . . It's not an okay thing. They don't realize
how much damage they do to them children when they do take them from their parents.”
Other participants described how the uncertainty and powerlessness they experienced with the Court
determining access to their children compromised their emotional safety. For example, one participant
described the difficulty of not knowing if or when they would get their child back: “It's the worst [expletive]
feeling in the world. It’s awful. It feels like somebody ripped your soul out and was holding it hostage.”
Another faulted the Court for failing to intervene when their children’s guardian interfered with visitation: “I
wasn't allowed really to see my children as much as I should've because of the person that has them doesn’t
really like me for some ungodly reason . . . I didn't feel emotional safety . . . I was broke down pretty much
because of not being able to see the children.”

3. TRANSPARENCY
Participants generally felt that Family Treatment Court was transparent. They found most expectations clear
and their limited confusions easy to clarify. As one respondent described, “Everything was written in front of
you. If you had a question about it, you could call, and boop, boop, there was – it was there. They were
there to answer.” Court milestones were central to these perceptions of transparency. Two of the three
respondents who reported issues with transparency participated before the Court transitioned from phases
to milestones. Another respondent with knowledge of phases and milestones offered this comparison:
“I was so happy when, a couple weeks ago I found out that Felony Court is going from phases to
milestones. Because when we finish these milestones – let's put it this way. You finish a phase, you
have to wait four months. Doesn't matter what you do. You can do everything you need to for that
phase in two weeks, but you're still waitin' four months before you phase up. Milestones, like give
me concrete answers. Like if I do all of this, am I done with this and on to the next one. And [that]
was nice about the milestones. I always knew what I had to do.”
A subset of respondents identified select instances they believed the Court was purposefully not transparent
for participants’ benefit. For example, one participant noted that FTC “lead[s] you on at the beginning,” but
saw this as strategic: “They're doing it to see if you . . . maintain sobriety.” Another felt tricked into doing
inpatient, but retrospectively believed “it was the best thing [the Court] could've done.” These comments
demonstrate that participants’ feelings toward the Court could be positive despite a lack of transparency.
The Court and other service providers’ dual responsibilities as sources of support and oversight, however,
were barriers to trust. As one respondent reflected, “As much as I love [Court Coordinator] Mindy, I couldn’t
trust her with a lot, and I knew I couldn’t trust her with a lot because she’s required to report those things.”
Another remembered, “I don’t think I was really open about how much I wanted to die. That was something
I definitely kept inside because I figured . . . my counselor would have to report to Family Treatment Court
. . . [and] I was worried that they would use that against me.”
FAIRNESS
Sometimes respondents resented the Court for applying standards inconsistently. They particularly resented
the Court’s discretion regarding graduations. One noted that “Other people that were smoking illegal
marijuana [K2] and passing their screens . . . graduated a graduation before us,” while another expressed
frustration at “witness[ing] [the Court] graduate active users.” Other times, respondents faulted the Court
for not attending more closely to the nuances of individual cases. These perspectives were not mutually
exclusive. For example, one respondent who temporarily—and, they felt, unfairly—lost custody maintained:
“Some people can still function and take care of their kids [while using] . . . I could. We had
everything that we needed. We didn't want for nothing. There's people out there still that were in
Family Treatment Court and being investigated right now, and she still has her [explicative] kids. It's –
it's unreal. The system is crazy here, and I tell them all about it every time I have a chance to.”
Another participant voiced similar frustration that the Court did not distinguish more between different
substances and their varying effects on daily functioning:
“I had never smoked crack in my life. I'd done coke a few times. I'm not a meth person. I'm not a
needle – none of that, okay. So, why is it I have to go to all these classes that all these people are
going to when I'm just a pothead, all right? They categorize everybody as if we're all one person and
instead of sitting us down to help us actually progress and excel.”

4. Many participants also criticized the Court’s drug screens, reporting frequent false positives and that the
Court sometimes acted hastily and unfairly in response to contestable results. For example, one participant
described the Court halting visitations following questionable screens:
“So I've tested positive for cocaine and it wasn't in my system and they punished me for it. And I
know several other participants that were punished and their tests were funky . . . and they like cut
off your visit just like that. You're not allowed to see your kids now . . . And it's like wow. You guys,
that's your guys' fuck-up. Like wow. That's horrible. Like, you need to have legit tests.”
Participants were hurt by the skepticism they faced when they contested unreliable tests’ results, or tried to
explain that the tests were detecting prescriptions. One participant shared, “I would hope they would have
more trust into people when it came to drug screening . . . I was sober for a while and they still didn't believe
me when it came to that, which really bothered me.” Another remembered that “the only bad experience”
they had with the Judge was after testing positive for opiates they were given for a medical procedure: “He
maybe got upset and thought I was lying and I was like I am like I'm not lying. I don’t know what to tell you
. . . it is hard when like you're telling the truth and then they don't believe you.”
But while respondents sometimes perceived mismatches between their actions and the Court’s reactions,
most did not believe their social identities influenced those experiences: When asked if they felt factors
about themselves as a person had affected how they were treated by the Court, two-thirds of them said no.
A minority of respondents perceived differential treatment3
based on race, gender or relationship status,
while two others reported discrimination based on past involvement with the child welfare and criminal
justice systems.
Across the sample more broadly, participants did not want to be defined by their pasts, but did want their
experiences considered in context. When they experienced this, they were very grateful. As one respondent
remembered, “When [Judge Rowley] would come to Court, I [felt] like I wasn't just a case number to him. I
[felt] like he really took into consideration . . . all the aspects that went into what I was dealing with.”
PEER SUPPORT
SAMHSA’s principles of trauma-informed care4
see “[p]eer support and mutual self-help [as] key vehicles for
establishing safety and hope, building trust, enhancing collaboration, and utilizing . . . stories and lived
experience to promote recovery and healing.” Interviews suggest the reality in Family Treatment Court was
more complex. While some Court participants relied on each other for support and motivation, many others
felt peer relationships invited drama or put them at risk for relapse5
:
“I say when you're going to the Family Treatment Court, have no friends . . . keep friends that are not
in that program, because that caused me a lot of drama . . . You've gotta focus on you, and just stay
away from all the bullshit.”
“In the beginning, I relied on them [peers] to get high, 'cause we all were still getting high together.
Towards the ending, I stopped talking to every single Family Treatment patient there was because we
all held each other down badly. And that's something I tried explaining to Family Treatment Court.
Listen, you stick us all together, we're not going to succeed.”’
3
See appendix.
4
Ibid, p. 11.
5
This widespread sentiment is explored more fully in the companion brief, “Family Treatment Court: Participant Trajectories.”

5. Respondents who avoided fellow Court participants often turned elsewhere. Many found outpatient
treatment groups—particularly Alcoholics Anonymous—more reliable sources of peer support. One
respondent shared: “I had like a rule, I wasn't really gonna rely on a lot of the people in FTC, I was gonna rely
on people at AA. People who I know are getting better and you can see it and you can feel it.” Another
echoed the sentiment, reflecting they “never” relied on fellow Court participants but rather “sought out
people who were more in AA.” Others looked beyond the treatment community altogether, turning
“elsewhere where [they] felt more comfortable,” like to family members.
COLLABORATION AND EMPOWERMENT
Family Treatment Court participants’ experiences of agency—the degree to which they felt involved in
decision-making and able to exert control of their cases—varied widely, both across cases and within them.
Some respondents reported largely positive or negative experiences with control, while almost half
expressed mixed or neutral ones.
Several respondents reported a lack of control, but seemed to feel that it was acceptable, or even
appropriate. For example, one person reflected that the Court “control[s] everything in your life” when you
first start the program, but added: “I don’t think it’s too much.” Someone else reflected that they had “not a
lot [of control] in the beginning, which [was] understandable” given they were in rehab with their “mind not
completely where it should be.”
Similar beliefs that practitioners could have perspective they lacked, and would act on that perspective in
their best interests, lead several respondents to accept certain limits on their control. For example, another
participant shared: “If I’ve asked for it [and] 50 percent of the team does not agree with me, that means
[it’s] because I’m not ready. [But] if 50 percent or more agrees with me, and the other 40 don’t, then I’m
gonna fight.”
Many participants felt their degree of control and the role they played in making decisions about their case
increased, appropriately, as they progressed through the program. In the words of one respondent, “[T]hey
gradually give you control back, but when you first go there, no. You don't have control of shit. But, that's on
you.”
Feelings of agency changed over time, but also varied based on whom participants engaged with. For
example, one respondent reported that their judge and lawyer involved them in decisions “100 percent,”
while their caseworker didn’t involve them at all. Another described how their experience changed with staff
turnover: “A caseworker didn't [involve me in decisions] up until I got [a different caseworker]. Once I got
[them], everyone was on the same page.” These reflections suggest control—or lack thereof—was
something participants experienced within specific relationships with program actors rather than as a
feature of the program overall.

6. APPENDIX: PERCEPTIONS OF DISCRIMINATION IN FAMILY TREATMENT COURT
SAMHSA’s guidelines for trauma-informed care emphasizes attention to cultural, historical, and gender
issues. This principle is not detailed above because a majority (two-thirds) of respondents did not believe
factors about themselves as a person affected how they were treated by the Court. However, some
respondents did perceive discrimination based on the following factors:
• Race One respondent felt judged for their race and for being in a mixed-race relationship. Another
believed a friend’s children were in the child welfare system because they were mixed-race. But, this
respondent did not witness differential treatment by Judge Rowley or Mindy and did not believe they
“judge like that [based on race.]” Finally, one respondent who felt personal factors did not influence
their experience qualified, “I’m lucky. I’m white.” However, this respondent did not give specific
examples of race-based differential treatment in Family Treatment Court, so their comment may
simply reflect an awareness of structural racism in society more broadly.
• Gender One respondent criticized FTC for operating based the stereotype that men are always the
perpetrators of domestic violence. This respondent reported he was “made [to] have to sit down and
say that [he] did something that [he] didn’t do” before he could complete the domestic violence
program he was assigned, and that his trial discharge was cancelled “because [he] said men can be a
victim of domestic violence, too.” (In response to this comment, a staffer told him he “was in denial
of things that [he] did.”) A few other respondents reported gender-based discrimination, but
disagreed as to whether men or women were disadvantaged; one reported “the female clients . . .
get a little bit more special attention,” while another reflected she “was expected more of because
[she] was a mom.”
• Relationship Status One respondent felt her ex and his wife were given more privileges because they
were married. Specifically, she resented that her child’s stepmother was granted full visiting rights as
soon she married the child’s father, while her partner “had to work to get his visitations up.” This
respondent described the differential treatment she and her partner received relative to her ex and
his wife was her “biggest issue” with the program.
• Personal History: One respondent whose older children were adopted out prior to their time in FTC
felt the program held this against them: “It affected it. It did. People say it doesn't. The [explicative] it
doesn't. They use that as, like, I'm not ready to be out of their program because I already lost [my
older] kids.” Another felt FTC would be improved by “not [using] people’s pasts against them,”
sharing that their partner had “past CPS history, past domestic violence history, things like that, but
[the Court] need[s] to judge you on who you are today.” Finally, one respondent felt their education
“definitely put [them] [at] an advantage,” but attributed this to their ability to “to relay and
communicate a little bit better” rather than to direct Court favoritism.