Sobriety Treatment and Recovery Teams (S.T.A.R.T.)

Tina Willauer joins DCBS

Tina Willauer is the Department for Community Based Services' (DCBS)  S.T.A.R.T. (Sobriety, Treatment and Recovery Teams) director and adviser to the Commissioner Mark A. Washington. 

Willauer obtained her master’s degree in public administration from Cleveland State University and a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice from Bowling Green State University. 

She was instrumental in developing, implementing, managing and leading the nationally recognized S.T.A.R.T. program in Cleveland. 

Willauer has devoted her career to serving children and families and brings a unique perspective based on her 16 years of experience in the child welfare field. She has served as a front-line social worker, supervisor and senior manager within the public child welfare system, spending the majority of her time working with chemically dependent families. 

As a certified chemical dependency counselor, Willauer has also facilitated drug treatment groups and successfully collaborated with service providers in the treatment community in Cleveland.

S.T.A.R.T. is an intensive case management model for child welfare designed to address the needs of drug affected families. The program integrates what is best known about addiction services treatment and good child welfare and family preservation practices into an approach that can work with the special needs of families struggling with the ill effects of substance abuse. 

S.T.A.R.T. philosophy is rooted in the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Family to Family values and is based on a collaborative approach to working with families.

The S.T.A.R.T. program in Kentucky is modeled after the nationally recognized S.T.A.R.T. program in Cleveland and is a component of  DCBS' comprehensive Partners in Prevention program.

The S.T.A.R.T. units have all of the responsibility that regular intake/investigation and on-going social workers have.  They provide in-home and ongoing protective services. When indicated, they can take custody and place children out of the home, working with the family on reunification or the development of an alternative permanency plan for the children. 

The S.T.A.R.T. units are comprised of teams of experienced social workers who will each be partnered with a family mentor who brings real life recovery experience to the team. Each team will work with a caseload of 12 families to allow for intensive case management services and individual attention to each family.

Members of the S.T.A.R.T. team will undergo ongoing, innovative and comprehensive training with the goal of becoming experts in the areas of chemical dependency, child welfare and community partnership. They will work intensively and collaboratively with families and community partners to achieve the goals of the program with the primary concern of improving our methods of keeping children safe. 

The development of strong partnerships with our community service providers is imperative to the success of the S.T.A.R.T. model. There will need to be a focus on the expansion of the array of substance abuse services available to Kentucky families.

Because we believe that most children are safest, emotionally and physically, in contact with their birth families, we are searching for ways to increase birth family involvement and responsibility for children.  At the same time, we must acknowledge that some substance-abusing parents may not be able to assume total responsibility for their children. Removal of children will always be based upon identified risk factors.

Our purposes in this program are to keep children safe; to develop a safe, nurturing, and stable living situation for them as rapidly and responsibly as possible; and to help their parents overcome their drug problems. Specific objectives are as follows:
 

To Keep Children Safe

• To reduce the risk for children who are not removed from their own homes
• To reduce the number of referrals to Child Protective Services of children who are not in custody

To Develop a Safe, Nurturing and Stable Living Situation for These Children as Rapidly and Responsibly as Possible

• To reduce the time that children remain in public agency custody before achieving permanency.
• To reduce the number of subsequent removals from the family and thus the re-entry rate to custody within one year of program completion.

To Help Drug-Addicted Parents Overcome Their Drug Problems

• To increase the percentage of substance-addicted parents who enter treatment.
• To increase treatment program retention rates after one and six months.
• To increase abstinence rates after one and six months.
• To decrease absenteeism from scheduled treatment sessions.
• To increase program completion rates.

The development for the foundation of the S.T.A.R.T. program in Kentucky has been underway since May 2006.  Hiring and training for S.T.A.R.T. staff continues with a goal of opening the doors to service families within the next 30-60 days.