Family Recovery Program

Every month, dozens of children in Baltimore are removed from the custody of parents who are abusing drugs. Helping those parents break free from addiction, demonstrate responsibility and be reunited with their children poses significant challenges.

To help these families, the Family League helped create the Family Recovery Program, a family-support initiative administered through the Maryland Juvenile Court.

This nationally recognized program provides parents with the substance abuse treatment they need and a full range of supportive services, including mental health care, transportation, housing assistance and case management support. Services are tailored to meet the needs of parents who are often in crisis and unable to move forward without intensive, ongoing help.

The program seeks to:

• Provide immediate, intensive substance abuse supportive services.
• Help social services officials make good decisions about reuniting parents and children, or finding a new permanent home for children.
• Reduce the time a child stays in foster care due to a parent’s drug abuse.
• Save costs for the state of Maryland by reducing time in foster care.

Over its first five years, the program has worked in partnership with key state agencies and the Juvenile Court to serve more than 800 families. It has established itself as an effective and cost-saving model for working with families in crisis.