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Ongoing NOFAS Colorado projects: The 17th Judicial District Project: Learning to Change the World for a Child The 17th Judicial FASD Project in Adams and Broomfield Counties has been in existence since September 2005, following 7 months of needs assessment and planning. This project identifies children in the juvenile court who have been prenatally exposed to drugs or alcohol, arranges for evaluations of the children, and supports the families, schools, and professionals in using the evaluation information to improve the lives of the children.
The
17th Judicial FASD Project identifies youth placed on Probation whose mothers
used drugs or alcohol during their pregnancies. They arrange complete
multi-disciplinary evaluations for these youth to identify any cognitive
deficits related to incomplete brain development. After the evaluations, the
FASD Intervention Specialists work with the parents and Probation Officers to be
sure that the youth receive all of the services recommended by the evaluation
team.
The project also identifies children under 7 who were exposed to drugs and alcohol prenatally and have been removed from their parents by the court. They monitor the development of these children to ensure that they receive the services needed to overcome any developmental lags that might appear. They work collaboratively with Early Childhood Connections and Child Find in this effort as they do with social workers and probation officers for the older children. They arrange for multidisciplinary evaluations if those are indicated. The FASD staff are available to the foster parents, relatives, and parents of the children to provide help in parenting the children and to help them access the services recommended by the evaluation. The 17th Judicial FASD Project is a model program and one of the first in the country to provide FASD intervention services for a large population of children and track the outcomes. The goals of the project are to decrease recidivism, improve school performance and attendance, and stabilize placement for the youth and children.
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They
provide the families with information about how to parent their children and
support in modifying their parenting approach. They help the parents work with
the schools to modify the children’s educational programs. They work with the
staff at placements for those who are placed out of home so that the staff
understand the children’s disabilities. In addition, they have an ongoing
parent support group which they encourage the parents and foster parents to
attend. Testing is done before and after the services to see if the children’s
lives are improved. 