The Drug Court Planning Initiative (DCPI)

Drug Court Planning Initiative (DCPI)

Sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), U.S. Department of Justice, in collaboration with the National Drug Court Institute (NDCI) DCPI is designed for communities interested in developing Adult Drug Court, Veterans Treatment Court, or Tribal programs. The training is designed to fulfill three interconnected goals:

1. Educating teams about the basic components of these courts;
2. Providing teams with the skills necessary for successfully making the shift from standard case processing to Drug, Veterans Treatment, or Tribal court case processing; and
3. Working with teams to build their program to integrate court and treatment functions.

The Drug Court Planning Initiative is designed to assist jurisdictions in the planning and development of Drug, Veterans Treatment, or Tribal court programs. A team of NDCI staff and cadre of treatment court practitioners will work with planning teams to develop their policy and procedure manual.

Each interactive DCPI training session has been designed to familiarize participants with the building blocks of these courts. Topics may include, but are not limited to: Team Building, Mission Statement, Goals and Objectives, Target Populations, Treatment, Psychopharmacology, Community Supervision, Drug Testing, Relapse and Decompensation, Incentives and Sanctions, Confidentiality and Ethics, Evaluation/MIS and Sustainability.

Participating jurisdictions must identify a team of professionals who will participate in distance-based technical assistance and attend one regional training event. All members of a planning team, including the judge, coordinator, prosecutor, defense counsel, treatment representative, community supervision representative, law enforcement and evaluator, must be able to attend a five-day training program to qualify for DCPI.