Tribal Adult Healing to Wellness Courts Project

The Edward Byrne Memorial Competitive Program: National Initiatives, administered by the Office of Justice Programs' (OJP) Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), furthers the Department's mission by assisting state and local jurisdictions in improving the criminal justice system and assisting communities in preventing drug abuse and crime. In FY 2008, the program will focus on funding local, regional, and national efforts within five major categories: 1) preventing crime and drug abuse; 2) enhancing local law enforcement; 3) enhancing local courts; 4) enhancing local corrections and offender reentry; and 5) facilitating justice information sharing.

The National Indian Justice Center (NIJC) will implement the Tribal Adult Healing to Wellness Courts Project under Category 2: Enhancing Local Courts. They will further leverage this practice by adapting and providing it specifically for use with tribal adult drug courts in a distance learning setting. Through this project, NIJC will increase the capacity of tribal communities nationwide to plan, implement, and operate tribal adult drug courts to meet the unique needs of participants who have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Fetal Alcohol Effect (FAS/FAE). They have developed, tested, and evaluated the FAS/FAE training program, specifically designed to improve the tribal criminal justice system response to participants who have FAS/FAE. NIJC will tailor the existing, culturally-appropriate, on-site curriculum on FAS/FAE in the tribal criminal justice system to the specific educational needs of tribal communities that are planning, implementing, and operating tribal adult drug courts; create a self-paced, modular, online distance education course on FAS/FAE for tribal adult drug court personnel; and recruit, enroll, and administer the online education program nationally to tribal adult drug court personnel.

CA/NCF