Montgomery County Juvenile Drug Court Enhancement Grant

The OJJDP FY 2014 Enhancements to Juvenile Drug Courts solicitation provides funding for currently operating juvenile drug courts to enhance capacity and services. A juvenile drug court provides comprehensive, developmentally appropriate, community-based services for youth who are younger than 18 years old and come in contact with the juvenile justice system due to alcohol or other drug use. The goal of this program is to enhance the capacity of juvenile drug courts and ultimately improve the outcome for the youth involved in the juvenile drug court program. Enhancements to juvenile drug courts will focus on one or more of the following key components of a juvenile drug court: (1) increase the use of scientifically based screening and assessment procedures for youth in contact with the juvenile justice system to identify youth in need of mental health and substance abuse services; (2) expand the range of developmentally appropriate and evidence-based programs and services to ensure a continuum of care is available for these youth; (3) enhance or develop family engagement; and/or (4) expand the outcome monitoring of the juvenile drug court.

The Montgomery County Ohio Juvenile Drug Court (MCJDC) began serving its target population of adjudicated, non-violent, drug-involved offenders in 1998. The current program serves low, moderate, and high risk offenders who have been adversely affected by drugs and/or alcohol with the ability to serve 165 youth annually. The purpose of the Drug Court is to reduce substance abuse and recidivism by providing judicially supervised treatment, strength based case management, drug testing, community supervision and use of incentives/sanctions. The population targeted are non-white youth aged 13-17.5 who are displaying substance abuse or dependency. These youth will be on probation and have adjudicated charges of varying degrees of misdemeanors and felonies. The primary goal is to enhance MCJDC Programming by increasing the successful completion rates and reducing recidivism of non-white youth enrolled in the program. All MCJDC youth will receive a scientifically based screening/assessment through the utilization of the Ohio Youth Risk Assessment to assist in identifying appropriate level of placement for a youth within the court system. The assessment will identify diagnosis, youth and family needs, level of care and any need for further evaluation. CA/NCF