Children Affected by Methamphetamine (CAM)

Children Affected by Methamphetamine (CAM) is a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) funded grant program focused on expanding and/or enhancing services to children and their families who are affected by methamphetamine use and abuse. The Public Health Service Act of 509 provided funding over a four-year period to 12 Family Treatment Drug Courts (FTDC) to improve the well-being, permanency, and safety outcomes of children who are in, or at-risk of out-of-home placement as a result of a parent’s or caregiver’s methamphetamine or other substance abuse.

The primary focus of this grant program is to provide services directly to the children and to provide supportive services for parents, caregivers, and families. Grantees are encouraged to include other caregivers or foster parents involved in the care of the children in the enhancement aspect of the family services. The parents served under this program must be involved in a FTDC and receiving substance abuse treatment services.

The Center for Children and Family Futures an Irvine, California based non profit, in partnership with ICF International, were awarded a contract to support the grant program. The goals of the CAM Support Contract are to develop a performance measurement system in collaboration with the grantees; provide programmatic and evaluation-related technical assistance to grantees; and to assess and analyze data submitted on grantee performance measures. Under the support contract, grantees will also receive technical assistance on data collection, performance measurement and evaluation topics. The National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare (NCSACW), funded by an interagency agreement between the Children’s Bureau (CB) and SAMHSA, will provide programmatic technical assistance to the grantees on a variety of topics, including collaboration, program sustainability, and substance abuse treatment practices for women and families.

The support contract will utilize three key approaches in working with grantees—Communication Central, a Performance Management Liaison (PML) and performance measurement support. Communication Central is a Web-based system that will allow the Federal Project Officer (FPO), grantees, and support contractors to share information and resources and provide effective communication procedures to facilitate coordination and collaboration among the multiple stakeholders. Communication Central provides task management, technical assistance tracking, and Web-based communications, including a learning community for critical peer-to-peer networking and sharing. Each grantee will be assigned a PML who will act as a liaison between the FPO and grantees. The PML will facilitate relationship building and provide the programmatic content expertise required to ensure quick start up and ongoing program accountability. Technical assistance will be provided to grantees on evaluation, data collection and performance measurement issues.

NCSACW Cam Sites (12)

NCSACW CAM Sites (12)