The first time Jayme DeSantos appeared in Family Court, she got so mad she threw her chair.
"I was super high," DeSantos recalled, abashed at the memory. "My mom and stepdad were telling the judge that I ran away, but actually they kicked me out. The judge wouldn’t hear my point of view. I got (angry) at him."
Her silky hair tumbled over her shoulders as she looked momentarily at the person she used to be, so distant from her current self.
Even while in "lockdown" at home under the care of her mother, DeSantos kept failing sobriety tests at Juvenile Drug Court. That was when her court team discovered what was going on at home.
Cocaine, marijuana, meth — all were part of the fabric of her life at home. She had grown up bouncing from one school to another as her mother kept on the move, spiraling down after the death of Jayme’s older sister.
"My mom, she was always working or always high or sleeping," DeSantos said, adding that the medicine her mother took for bipolar disorder made her sleepy. "When I started to get high and bring it home, then she would be home a lot more."
In Juvenile Drug Court the teenager discovered something most others take for granted.
"I never knew what it felt like to have a normal life," DeSantos said. "They taught me so many different things: about how life is, how family is supposed to be. … After a while I just caught on to what I was supposed to do."
She graduated from Juvenile Drug Court within a year. "It took many years for my mom and my stepdad to get a grip on it," she said. "I learned from JDC to let them be, to deal with life on my own terms."
Today, DeSantos is 25 and has held a steady job in accounting for six years. She is busy planning her wedding. She stays in touch with her friends at the court, including her former probation officer, Bridgette Bennett, now the Juvenile Drug Court’s clinical supervisor, and Judge R. Mark Browning, who now oversees all of Family Court.
"They taught me something about friendship and trust and learning how to cope," DeSantos said. "They all made me feel like there was a reason to live and not just a reason to struggle in life. I took that to heart. … Even when I relapsed, they never did give up hope on me."
"They are like family," she concluded. "They saved my life completely."
