First mother graduates

It wasn't your standard graduation party, but for Marcellina Morcos, Friday signaled the end of a long, arduous road -- and the beginning of a new life.

Morcos, 35, was honored as the first graduate from the Dependency Mothers' Drug Court, a residential treatment program to help mothers become drug-free and regain custody of their children.

After more than a year of voluntary containment at WestCare's Women and Children's campus, including a four-month, depression-laced span where she never once saw her daughter, Morcos said she feels good to be part of society again.

"The fight for my life, and to have my daughter back in my life, was the hardest thing I've done," she said.

Morcos is the first Las Vegas product of $3.7 million, five-year federal grant to rehabilitate mothers addicted to methamphetamine and on the verge of permanently losing their children.

She was one of 12 residents of the Dependency Mothers' Drug Court admitted to WestCare, which runs a five-phase program designed to give mothers a support system to successfully live independently upon completion.

Nicole Frechette, clinical manager of the Healthy Families Program at WestCare, said the residents have daily group sessions, weekly individual sessions and a weekly meeting with a drug court judge.

Every situation and every mother is different, but she said the first 30 days of the program are usually the hardest.

"They go to a detox facility first," Frechette said. "Then for the first 30 days here they are learning how to cope without using any type of drug. They really need the support of their sisters to get through it."

Morcos said the other mothers provided enormous support during her darkest times, especially when she was without her 2-year-old daughter, Kaiana, who had been in foster care.

"When you're feeling down you need someone to talk to," she said. "Instead of holding back the emotions and feelings that make you feel like nothing, you have a group that won't pass judgment."

Clark County District Judge Jennifer Elliot, who meets with the mothers each week, acknowledged that some members of society will pass judgment on rehabilitation programs.

But drug courts work, she said. A study by the National Association of Drug Court Professionals concluded that 75 percent of drug court graduates remain arrest-free at least two years after leaving the program.

And for every $1 invested in drug courts nationwide, taxpayers save as much as $3.36 in avoided criminal justice costs, the study concluded.

"This is our community's best line of defense," Elliot said.

Because the federal grant diminishes with each successive year, Elliot hopes public awareness will increase when the money is gone in 2013.

"We're setting people up for success," she said. "If we show that we're doing a good job, we hope we can get others to help us."

As for Morcos, she's sober, employed, and living independently with her daughter, who she called the "love of her life."

And she's already passing on some of the lessons she learned to her "sisters" in the program, including her former roommate Erin Craig.

"It's inspiring," said Craig, 22, of watching Morcos graduate. "To see where she was, and where she is now ... It encourages me to do things I couldn't do."

Contact reporter Mike Blasky at mblasky@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0283.