Tribal Healing to Wellness Court Responses to Underage Drinking Technical Assistance

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) envisions a nation and tribal nations where our children are healthy, educated, and free from violence. If they come into contact with the family and juvenile justice system, the contact should be rare, fair and beneficial to them. To meet this vision, tribal juvenile, juvenile and family, or family Healing to Wellness Courts (referred to as Tribal Healing to Wellness Courts) provide comprehensive, developmentally appropriate, community-based, and culturally appropriate services for youth who come in contact with the tribal juvenile justice system due to alcohol or other drug use. This program supports efforts of such courts to develop or enhance their capacity to address issues related to youth younger than 21 years old who possess and consume alcohol.

As a part of this initiative, through Category 2, a training and technical assistance provider will be identified to support the work of the selected program sites. The Fund for the City of New York/Center for Court Innovation (the Center), in partnership with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) was selected and will provide comprehensive, culturally-relevant training and technical assistance to grantees of OJJDP's Healing to Wellness Court Responses to Underage Drinking Initiative. The goals for this project are to: 1) provide culturally-relevant training and technical assistance to help Tribal Healing to Wellness Courts address the needs of youth suffering from alcohol-related issues, 2) train grantees in collaborative strategies for reducing negative outcomes related to underage drinking, and 3) help grantees develop rigorous data collection protocols that support program evaluation. To accomplish these goals, the Center will convene a multi-disciplinary advisory committee to provide project guidance, assess the training and technical assistance needs of grantee tribes, assist grantees in conducting system assessments, provide a wide array of on-site and long-distance training and technical assistance to address system gaps, and convene an all-sites grantee meeting to promote coordination and information exchange.
CA/NCF