Drug Court Training and Technical Assistance Grant

ONDCP’s Drug Court Training and Technical Assistance Grant support training and technical assistance (TTA) that helps states, state courts, local courts, units of local government with drug courts or considering drug courts develop, maintain, and enhance alternatives to incarceration for individuals with addiction. The President’s priority is to enhance public safety by providing those who have engaged in criminal activity with greater opportunities to lead productive lives by addressing a range of issues, including mental health, vocational training, job creation, after-school programming, substance abuse, and mentoring through evidence-based rehabilitation programs.  ONDCP seeks to reduce drug use and its consequences through evidence-based practices, and this grant will apply these principles to the criminal justice system.

 The purpose of this grant is to: (1) educate, train, and produce materials to improve adherence to best practices, (2) decrease justice costs and recidivism, (3) improve access to services and service delivery, and (4) reduce disproportionality of punishment in the criminal justice system. The grant recipient shall:

·         Use expert practitioners in the fields engaged in the science of addiction, criminal justice, healthcare, and drug courts.

·         Provide in-person training, online training, and jurisdiction-specific technical assistance to a variety of demographically-composed areas at the state, local, and tribal levels.

·         Include ONDCP policy priorities in the development and execution of training and technical assistance programs and educational materials:

o   Applying a comprehensive approach to addressing opioid use disorders, including overdose prevention and naloxone administration training, and programs that provide access to medication-assisted treatment.

o   Diversion programming with evidenced-based and comprehensive case management, treatment for substance use disorders, recovery and other necessary services.

o   Consistency of practice among drug courts

·         Collect and analyze data from jurisdictions engaged in grantee programming on alternatives to incarceration to determine the effectiveness of the trainings and on-site assistance.

All portions of the application must reflect these objectives and subject matter areas.

 Goal. The program’s goals are: (1) to provide TTA to criminal justice practitioners to develop, maintain, and enhance evidence-based interventions from arrest to reentry; (2) to educate criminal justice professionals on substance use disorders; and (3) to develop TTA on medication-assisted treatment and overdose reversal medications to expand use in drug courts, to support recovery, and to prevent overdose deaths.

 Program Objectives. The objectives of the program are as follows:

·         To provide tools that educate and train at statewide, regionally, and nationally of no-cost, on-request curricula on evidence-based interventions at all points of engagement with the criminal justice system to ensure systematic implementation.

·         To provide statewide, regionally, and nationally of no-cost evidence-based training for treatment providers working with drug court.

·         To provide statewide and regional training for drug courts on census expansion with a focus on probation violators.

 ·         To develop tools that educate drug court practitioners on the implementation of the evidence-based drug court standards for adult drug courts.

 •        To provide TTA to drug court practitioners on the evidence-based drug court standards for adult drug courts.

•         To develop educational materials to address substance use disorders and opioid strategies for people in the criminal justice system.

•        To develop and conduct no-cost training events for drug court professionals on medication-assisted treatment and overdose prevention.

•        To conduct evaluations of trainings provided under this grant.