To optimize the impact of trauma-informed policies and programs, states should engage all three branches of government to achieve shared goals. States like Tennessee have implemented coordinated three branch initiatives, and others are beginning to explore strategies to address trauma and promote healing by working across the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Because so many individuals who interact with the justice system have experienced significant traumatic events, the judicial branch is well-positioned to address and interrupt the cycle of trauma. Focusing on making court policies, programs, design, and training more trauma-responsive provides an opportunity to both prevent re-traumatization and coordinate across sectors to better serve children and families.

Pathways to Resilience is pleased to highlight Florida’s early childhood and family courts as a model for trauma-responsiveness. These innovative court models leverage interdisciplinary partnerships and demonstrate the power of strong judicial leadership and organizational infrastructure to improve the court experience as well as longer-term outcomes for families.

Early Childhood Courts

Florida’s early childhood courts (ECC), also known as “baby courts,” hear child welfare cases involving children under the age of three. Early childhood court is often referred to as a problem-solving court, meaning it uses specialized dockets consisting only of child welfare cases, has multidisciplinary teams led by judges who closely supervise case progress, offers non-adversarial alternatives to the traditional litigation process, and provides individualized and evidence-based services. Members of the court teams, including case managers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, law enforcement, and corrections officers, receive specialized training on the science of brain development, attachment, the impact of trauma, and early childhood development. This helps to better inform decisions about placement, visitation, reunification, and to ensure that appropriate services are provided to children, parents and caregivers during a critical period of childhood development. A pivotal focus is on improving the child-parent relationship through more frequent contact than in traditional courts and through Child Parent Psychotherapy, the premier evidence-based intervention for young children and families (which can be billed to Medicaid).

Florida’s Early Childhood Court Initiative began with a pilot in 2013 and has now expanded to 31 sites. It was inspired by the country’s first early childhood court, the Miami Child Well-Being Court, which then flourished as ZERO TO THREE’s Safe Babies Court Team (SBCT) approach. SBCT has become a national model providing best practices, technical assistance, and evaluation services. Florida further customized the SBCT approach to fit the state’s diverse courts from Pensacola to Miami, guided by the Early Childhood Court Best Practice Standards and ECC Best Practice Commentary and References.

Getting Results

Like other states that have evolved from the ZERO TO THREE model, Florida has seen improved permanency, reunification, and safety outcomes, and multiple evaluations show compelling results. For example, a 2020 evaluation conducted by the Office of the State Courts Administrator found that, on average, children involved in early childhood courts were reunified with parents 137 days sooner, reached adoption 79 days sooner, and obtained permanent guardianship 152 days sooner than children whose cases were not heard in early childhood courts and did not re-enter care. The conservative Florida TaxWatch organization conducted a cost-benefit analysis of the approach and ended up recommending a dedicated funding source to expand early childhood courts statewide.

Ingredients for Success

Florida’s success in establishing and scaling early childhood courts can be attributed to a variety of factors, including strong statewide partnerships. Several current and former judges who have served on committees reporting to the Florida Supreme Court and on the Court itself are champions for early childhood courts. These trailblazers had no dedicated funding but maximized resources by creatively utilizing vacant court positions or partnering with community funders such as United Way, Community Based Care Organizations (privatized child welfare entities), Children Services Councils (property taxes devoted to children), and local philanthropies like the Baranacik Foundation.

In addition to individual judges and partner organizations, the administrative arm of the Florida Courts has provided key infrastructure and organizational support. The Office of the State Courts Administrator (OSCA) has made early childhood courts a central initiative in its Dependency Court Improvement Program and committed time, personnel, and money to the effort, which has in turn reduced barriers to implementation and encouraged the expansion of early childhood courts across the state. Key supports have included judicial trainings; mentoring and training of Community Coordinators; and sponsoring “All Sites Summits” to bring together court teams from across the state to build relationships, share implementation and funding strategies, and continue to learn and grow. Early on, OSCA also had the foresight to establish a data tracking system that enabled multiple evaluations of early childhood courts which have shown impressive results similar to ZERO TO THREE Safe Babies Court Team.

Florida has also leveraged partnerships with ZERO TO THREE and Florida State University’s Center for Prevention & Early Intervention Policy (CPEIP) to establish pilot programs, foster connections between stakeholders, conduct evaluations, and develop resources and trainings. Dr. Mimi Graham, director of CPEIP, a fellow of ZERO TO THREE, and an early champion of early childhood courts, and her team developed relationships between early childhood systems and the courts; educated court teams about trauma and early childhood science; and created a variety of in-person and online trainings, implementation guides, and resources such as a roadmap and an orientation course to support courts in achieving fidelity to the best practice standards approved by the Florida Supreme Court. Her organization has also played a key role in expanding Child Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) capacity over the past two decades. In 2022, CPEIP graduated four CPP Train-the-Trainers after five years of apprenticeship, providing Florida with the capacity to train CPP clinicians while also recruiting, coordinating, and conducting two new cohorts of CPP trainees with outreach to minorities and underserved areas. In addition, CPEIP secured 30 CPP scholarships funded by state problem-solving court appropriations and 30 funded by the Department of Health.

Early Childhood Court Resources

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Infographics:

Family Court

Florida has also established an integrated approach to family courts and aims to have all cases involving one family handled by the same judge. This process began in 1991 with a series of Florida Supreme Court opinions that created the Steering Committee on Families and Children in the Court, which it tasked with developing a “fully integrated, comprehensive approach to handling all cases involving children and families.” In 2001 the Supreme Court issued their seminal opinion endorsing the family court guiding principles, jurisdiction, and essential elements. The Steering Committee also oversees the Dependency Court Improvement Panel’s work with early childhood courts and helps apply practices from those courts to family courts when appropriate. By standardizing its approach to family court cases and adopting a one family, one judge model whenever possible, Florida provides stability and consistency for families, prevents re-traumatization, and encourages the resolution of cases in a timely and non-adversarial manner.

As with early childhood courts, the state has developed various resources to help family court judges and other stakeholders better understand and apply trauma-informed principles. In particular, the Family Court Tool Kit: Trauma and Child Development provides information on trauma and child development, implications for the courtroom, and practical tools that judges and others can use to respond to and address trauma. Other resources in the toolkit include both national and state-based trauma curriculum, webinars, and a self-care toolkit for judges. The focus on the real-world implications of trauma paired with actionable strategies for addressing it in the courtroom has made the toolkit a valuable resource for Florida’s family court judges.

Pathways to Resilience highlighted Florida’s early childhood courts in a recent Learning Network Session on trauma-informed courts that also featured speakers from North Carolina and Tennessee. The initiative will continue to amplify strategies for promoting healing and resilience in the judicial branch and share resources to provide guidance to states seeking to implement similar approaches.