Kane County Treatment Alternative Court Program

The Edward Byrne Memorial Discretionary Grants Program (Byrne Discretionary Program) helps local communities improve the capacity of local justice systems and provides for national support efforts. This project is authorized and funded through a line item in the FY 08 Congressional Budget. Funds should be used for purposes recommended by Congress.

The Kane County 16th Judicial Circuit will provide the services of the Kane County Treatment Alternative Court (TAC) for defendants with mental illness, co-occurring disorders or developmental disabilities who come into contact with the criminal justice system. Eligible participants will be referred to the TAC team, a multidisciplinary group that meets weekly to address the progress and needs of participants, who will then make a decision based on the results of clinical assessment whether to accept the participant into the program. TAC goals for participants include increasing their level of personal wellness, reducing psychiatric symptoms, and increasing levels of adaptive functioning, to be achieved through attendance at mental health or mental illness/substance abuse treatment groups, psychiatric appointments, psychosocial programming, support or self-help groups, and vocational and/or educational programming. The program will also include process and outcome evaluations using a management information system containing data on each client to assess the program's impact on public safety and participants' quality of life and treatment engagement.

NCA/NCF