Kentucky Specialty Court Symposium

The Administrative Office of the Courts is seeking $430,000 for the Harlan County, KY Drug Courts (HCDC) under the Adult Drug Court and Veterans Treatment Court Discretionary Grant Program (BJA-0-2021-46003), Category 3 Adult Drug Court. HCDC is comprised of two existing rural Appalachian post-plea adult drug court programs. The felony program began in 2004, and the misdemeanor program began in 2017.

This grant proposes an expansion in more clients to be served and an enhancement of services to be provided.  Minimum average time in HCDC for exited participants in CY 2019-2020 was 54 days; maximum was 435 days, and the average was 130 days. Given historical admissions data, HCDC will expand capacity 19.05% to serve high risk/high needs non-violent adult offenders charged with felony and misdemeanor drug-related crimes who are statutorily eligible for diversion or probation.

Medication assisted treatment (MAT) is available locally and is not denied to any participant before admission, during the program. Completing the program is not contingent on discontinuation.  The program agrees that MAT participation is a medical decision between the participant and medical provider.

Opioids and methamphetamine reduction plans are described on page 10 and includes education, medication where appropriate, and evidence-based treatment and curricula. See Attachment: Substance Use Reduction Plan.

Goals for this project, based on the NADCP Best Practice Standards (BPS) are located on page 11 and are: (1) To expand program capacity and capabilities of the HCDC to serve 25 high risk/needs felony and misdemeanor participants annually, or 100 over 4 years). (BPS 1, 2, 9); (2) To enhance recovery support services through the addition of a peer support specialist to the treatment team (BPS 5, 6); and (3) To ensure that project implementation and evaluation adhere to objectives and facilitate continuous quality improvement (BPS 10).

Goals/objectives will be independently evaluated via outcome data based on Specialty Court MIS and process evaluation data by the evaluation team. This proposal conforms to the framework of the State Strategy of Substance Abuse Treatment.  This jurisdiction has not previously received a drug court grant from the OJP and is not currently leveraging any other federal funding sources.

The program is in a rural area, has high and persistent poverty (U.S. Census data 1990, 2000, 2010), and is a designated Qualified Opportunity Zone (Dept. of Treasury, 2020). (See Attachments).  Thus, priority consideration is requested for this proposal.