Drug Endangered Children Multi-disciplinary Training Development and Delivery Initiative

The National Initiatives: Addressing Substance Abuse program, administered by the Office of Justice Programs' (OJP) Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), aims to improve the functioning of the criminal justice system and provide assistance to victims of crime (other than compensation) by providing assistance to communities in responding to substance abuse-related crime. Throughout the criminal justice system, there are demonstrably higher rates of substance abuse among offenders than among the general population. OJP provides many programs and services that assist communities in planning, implementing, and enhancing criminal justice responses such as tools for law enforcement to address the substance abusing offender, drug courts, jail and prison treatment programs, and reentry programs. The FY 2010 National Initiatives: Addressing Substance Abuse solicitation focuses on two critical issue areas that law enforcement and others in the criminal justice system encounter daily: drug-endangered children and pharmaceutical crime.

The National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children will work with a national network of state alliances and expert working groups to create an effective discipline-specific comprehensive training curriculum. The proposed training will build on the Core DEC Training that has already been developed and address the unique needs of practitioners working with these children. Goals under this initiative are as follows: develop discipline specific drug endangered children training that utilizes a multidisciplinary collaborative approach; increase the knowledge of practitioners through the widespread delivery of this next level of DEC training; improve outcomes for drug endangered children by working with criminal justice and other practitioners to develop greater awareness and more effective responses; and strengthen the infrastructure for drug endangered children efforts across the nation.

CA/NCF