Jefferson County Co-Occurring Court (COC)

Program Abstract

Jefferson County Co-Occurring Court Enhancement Grant

Jefferson County, Alabama is applying for a Category 3 drug court enhancement grant in the amount of $494,969. The applicant court is a pre-adjudication co-occurring substance abuse and mental health court. The court will serve 30 participants per year for a total of 240 participants over the life of the grant.

The minimum length of participation in the court is 6 months for Track 2 and 12 months for Track 1. There is no maximum length of participation and the average length of participation is between 14 and 16 months.

The co-occurring court is designed to assist justice-involved defendants with a co-occurring disorder charged with an eligible felony with identified treatment needs associated with substance abuse and mental health. Participants have access to all three forms of FDA-approved medications to treat opioid use disorder.

The proposed enhancements include adding a) ten hours of physician time per week to conduct mental health assessments for defendants referred to the program without an existing diagnosis to expedite entry into the program and b) adding one full-time peer recovery specialist to provide recovery support to co-occurring court participants.

As discussed on page 8 of the program narrative, the proposed enhancements align with NADCP's Adult Drug Court Best Practice Standard V (substance abuse treatment). The co-occurring court is committed to reducing the time from referral to entry and expediting entry into treatment and incorporates evidence-based recovery support services, including peer recovery

The court is not leveraging any other federal funding sources for this initiative. Jefferson County has previously been awarded a BJA Veterans Treatment Court Enhancement Grant (Grant No. 2020-VC-BX-0053).