Washita-Custer County Treatment Court Program is celebrating National Drug Court Month during the month of May.
While 2020 has brought about some unique challenges and changes to the program due to the pandemic, we are overcoming and adapting while serving our participants and communities. Program staff have chosen to carry on and become more creative in our interventions because we know our participants and our communities need this program to provide supervision, accountability, and treatment to our participants. Washita-Custer County Treatment Court Program continues to maintain contact with the participants by phone calls, welfare checks, social distancing court status hearings, continued drug and alcohol testing, and telehealth services.
Staff has invested numerous hours to learning how to best serve our participants, and the communities they live in, all while staying safe and promoting health and wellness during this trying time. Those facilitating self-help meetings have also adapted by offering meetings online, over the phone, or through other social distancing practices, all critical to engaging participants and supporting them at the community level.
Each participant is required to attend treatment services, self-help meetings, complete volunteer work, get their driver’s license, get their high school equivalency diploma, and maintain employment. Participant pay a monthly fee for drug testing and supervision. This program provides each participant the structure and habilitation necessary to end the substance use lifestyle and become self-sufficient and sober.
We know that this program is saving lives and families in Western Oklahoma: Recent data shows that participants have increased reunification with their children and decreased time spent incarcerated when they work this program. Treatment courts have been found to reduce crime and drug use. Participant data shows an increase in employment, income, and health insurance while participants are in this program. State data has consistently proven tax payer savings of approximately $14,000 a year by serving just one participant at the community level rather than choosing to incarcerate that individual.
Each May, we celebrate each participant and their families in honor of National Drug Court Month. We are celebrating this year by spearheading a community clean-up project for Foss Lake Reservoir and Weatherford parks on May 27th, 2020.
Drug courts save lives, save money, and helps to keep families together. Treatment courts represent a compassionate approach to the ravages of addiction. This year’s National Drug Court Month celebration should signal that the time has come to reap the economic and societal benefits of expanding this proven budget solution to all in need.