Category: Uncategorized

What does Do Better mean? The NDCRC has launched a campaign to identify how we can all Do Better to elevate the treatment court field. Learn more about the campaign and let us know how we can help you Do Better every day!

Learn More

The NDCRC will attend RISE21, the annual conference for treatment court practitioners, public health and public safety professionals, hosted by NADCP. NDCRC directors Dr. Kristen DeVall and Dr. Christina Lanier will present on the use of recovery-oriented language in treatment court settings. Join us for networking, educational sessions, and visit the NDCRC table from August 14-18!  

Notice anything different on the NDCRC site? On your first visit after March 15, you'll be prompted to answer a survey about your experience using the website. If you close out of the pop-up without doing the survey, don't worry! After you're done working, you can still access the survey. This survey should only pop up on your first visit, so if you think of something later, you can still let us know. Thank you for helping us improve our website!

This survey closed May 19th, 2021.

The Department of Justice is now requiring all grant applications to be submitted through the JustGrants portal. During this transition, there are plenty of learning opportunities to familiarize with this new process! Applicants can find a DOJ collection of resources on how to use this new tool as well as an application submission guide on our Grant Writing Resources page.

• OJJDP FY 2021 Children's Advocacy Centers National Subgrants Program
• OJJDP FY 2021 Delinquency Prevention Grants Program
• OJJDP FY 2021 Family Drug Court Program
• OJJDP FY 2021 Juvenile Drug Treatment Court Program
• OJJDP FY 2021 Opioid Affected Youth Initiative
• OJJDP FY 2021 Second Chance Act Youth Offender Reentry Program
• OJJDP FY 2021 Supporting Tribal Youth: Training and Technical Assistance and Youth Leadership Development

 

The NDCRC will be closed from December 24th through January 1st based on the University of North Carolina Wilmington's holiday closure schedule. The office will reopen on January 4th. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

December is Impaired Driving Prevention Month and a critical time for your DWI court to engage and educate your community. Awareness is key to reducing the impaired driving epidemic, and your treatment court can help. Download your newly redesigned toolkit from NADCP's National Center For DWI Courts to find out how!

Inside the toolkit you'll find:

• Ideas for safe events to raise awareness about the dangers of impaired driving
• Educate your community on how DWI courts are making a difference
• Tips for engaging your local media and elected officials
• Sample social media posts and op-ed
• Ideas for keeping your participants safe during the holiday season

And much more!

Download the Toolkit Here

NADCPs Justice For Vets has assembled a Veterans Day Toolkit containing a wealth of resources to help you plan and execute events, as well as educate your elected officials and the media.

Veterans Day Toolkit


Justice for Vets is now accepting applications for free operational tune-ups for veterans treatment courts! Teams will experience two days of virtual interactive training, review operations, and identify areas for improvement. The application deadline is November 30.

Apply for a Tune-Up

According to Knottnerus (2005) ". . . daily life is normally characterized by an array of personal and social rituals. Such rituals help create stability to social life while expressing various symbolic meanings that give significance to our actions" (p. 8). Both positive and negative behaviors are part of daily life and when practiced often enough become ritualized. Individuals in recovery often report that certain "people, places, or things" can elicit behavioral responses without conscious awareness or intention. This reality underscores the need for the recovery process and programming to include an emphasis on individuals recognizing negative rituals and replacing them with positive (or prosocial) rituals.
We know from research that this behavioral change must be predicated on a change in attitudes/beliefs, an increase in knowledge regarding the behavior and associated consequences, as well as ample time to practice new behaviors within a structured and supportive environment. Changing ritualized behavior can be a difficult process and feel very foreign no matter how positive the results may be. Researchers, Van de Poel-Knottnerus and Knottnerus (2011), assert that ". . . when patterned, ritualized modes of behavior are severely disrupted, this is a very difficult and problematic situation for human beings" (p. 108). To this end, understanding how ritualized behavior forms, as well as how it can be effectively changed, is central to the work of treatment court practitioners and researchers. Understanding the specific mechanisms by which programs affect behavior change among various target populations, and sub-populations, is crucial to success and sustainability.
We hope the below-listed resources encourage you to take inventory of the ways in which your treatment court program facilitates and supports participants in their work to replace negative habits with positive ones. Also, we hope this information provides you with ideas as to how your program can work to do more in this area. While Dr. Clear's work is not specific to treatment courts, the ideas are very much applicable to the behavior change process that is central to the treatment court model. The article by Drs. Lanier and DeVall applies Structural Ritualization Theory to adult treatment courts specifically.