Bexar County Family Drug Court

The Drug Court Discretionary Grant Program is designed to assist states, state courts, local courts, units of local government, and Indian tribal governments in developing and establishing drug courts for substance-abusing adult and juvenile offenders. Drug court programs funded by the Drug Court Discretionary Grant Program are required by law to target nonviolent offenders. The program supports the following activities: adult drug court implementation, single jurisdiction drug court enhancement, statewide drug court enhancement, and planning efforts.

The Bexar County Adult Criminal Drug Court will use the drug court enhancement grant to service dually-diagnosed individuals with integrated treatment as well as offer those therapists who service these clients with opportunities for training and technical assistance. This will be accomplished by hiring two full-time, masters level licensed practicing clinicians (LPC's) who are devoted exclusively to the integrated treatment of the dually diagnosed. The Adult Drug Court also proposes to fund training and technical assistance for these two LPCs. Specifically, the Adult Drug Court proposes to send these two clinicians to the annual conference of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals. This Drug Court is modeled after the Ten Key Components as articulated by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP). As such, it is a post-adjudication program which serves as an alternative to jail and prison. It uses the leverage of the criminal justice system to effect treatment and rehabilitation versus punishment and incarceration. It uses a non-adversarial approach in which the prosecution and defense counsel shed their customary relationship and instead work together as a team. The Drug Court has four phases which require a minimum of 18 months. The target population is those offenders who have a non-violent, drug-related felony offense.

The Drug Court employs a 'wraparound' model of service delivery for each participant with a continuum of alcohol and drug treatment as the centerpiece of any and all services provided. Judicial interaction with program participants is ongoing and intense. Abstinence is monitored by frequent drug testing in which both treatment providers and probation officers perform their own, on-site, random, unannounced urine analysis (UA) drug screens. The Adult Drug Court, through its experience, has determined that a sizable portion of the caseload has both a substance abuse problem as well as a mental illness. Related to this, it is widely understood that addressing one problem without addressing the other does not yield positive outcomes.

CA/NCF