The Marion County Drug Court program has received a $252,853 three year U.S. Department of Justice grant.
The Director of Court Services for Marion County Renee Pride says the funding will allow for significant improvements to the Marion County Drug Court program in partnership with the Community Resource Center and the Marion County Drug Court Support Center.
“The premise behind why we are seeking the grant is to maintain housing for our participants coming in in need of housing. The drug court support group previously has had the grant and we had the national organization come out and do an audit of it and they said it would probably be better placed with the probation department to seek the grant in the future.”
Pride says housing is key to the success of drug court.
“Housing is very important. We are very unique that we have housing in this area for participants in need. To take them out of the situation and not return them back to the environment where they will probably relapse. Now housing is a temporary housing for a very short period of time to get them stabilized and then we work very hard to stabilize them and get them out of that housing and into their own place.”
Pride says the drug court support group currently owns a two bedroom home in Centralia, has a one bedroom rental in Centralia and a tiny home in Salem. With the grant, they will be able to reopen Hope House, which can house up to four participants.
Funding will include and improve participant services in other areas including dental and vision services, substance abuse treatment, medication assisted treatment, substance abuse related evidence-based treatment programs, medication monitoring and testing, telehealth data plans, recovery support
services, evidence-based cognitive behavioral programs, educational classes and testing, transportation assistance and team member trainings.
The Marion County Drug Court program began in 2011 with a goal to target adult offenders struggling with substance abuse addiction to effectively and efficiently manage their addiction in an atmosphere that is focused on fostering successful rehabilitation through progressive and personalized treatment.
So far there have been 63 graduates and through 2019 76.8-percent of the graduates had not been convicted of another felony offense. Pride reports that is near the national average for drug court programs.
Drug court can have maximum of 30 participants at a time. The court currently has 27 assigned to the program. The average time to graduate the program is 27.1 months.
