Mission Educate

The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) FY20 Adult Drug Court (ADC) and Veterans Treatment Court (VTC) Discretionary Grant Program provides financial and technical assistance to states, state courts, local courts, units of local government, and federally recognized Indian tribal governments to implement and enhance the operations of adult drug courts and veterans treatment courts. BJA’s ADC/VTC Program supports efforts by state, local, and tribal courts to address the needs of individuals in the criminal justice system with substance abuse issues. The focus is to reduce opioid, stimulant, and substance abuse. BJA allows award recipients to implement or enhance the most appropriate drug court model to accommodate the needs and available resources of their jurisdictions, so long as the model conforms to the 10 key components and the evidence-based program principles in the nationally-recognized drug court standards.

The grant recipient will use grant funds to improve, enhance, or expand drug court and veterans treatment court services statewide. Statewide enhancement activities may include scaling up the drug court program’s capacity, launching a drug court, expanding treatment and services, conducting audits of practice and technical assistance for adherence to standards, data collection and analysis to assess practice and track recidivism, and training and technical assistance (TTA). In FY20, BJA has prioritized projects that develop or expand a state-based TTA program that enhances the capacity of states to support local ADC and VTC TTA needs, including training to address staff turnover and offer operational skills updates and expanding treatment resources in locations with critical substance abuse needs. In addition, funds may be used for smaller, short-term projects to support statewide training conferences, scholarships to attend key training events, including national drug court conferences, and other operational training to support local capacity. CA/NCF