New Fact Sheet: Six Steps to Improve Your Drug Court Outcomes for Adults with Co-Occurring Disorders

SAMHSA’s GAINS Center and the National Drug Court Institute are pleased to announce a new practitioner fact sheet titled Six Steps to Improve Your Drug Court Outcomes for Adults with Co-Occurring Disorders. The GAINS Center and NDCI believe that every adult drug court can achieve positive outcomes for persons with co-occurring disorders—if the court is committed to doing so. With some creativity and thoughtful planning, most persons with co-occurring disorders can successfully participate in drug courts. To effectively work with persons with mental illnesses co-occurring with substance use disorders, your court will need to understand and implement the six keys to success. Each step in this document addresses one of these keys:

• Step 1: Know Who Your Participants Are and What They Need
• Step 2: Adapt Your Court Structure
• Step 3: Expand Your Treatment Options
• Step 4: Target Your Case Management and Community Supervision
• Step 5: Expand Mechanisms for Collaboration
• Step 6: Educate Your Team

Funded by SAMHSA’s GAINS Center, these documents will help drug courts begin to address individuals with co-occurring disorders.

This new fact sheet is now available online on the GAINS Center website and will be available for distribution at the NADCP Annual Training Conference to be held July 15-18 in Washington, DC.