Cayuga County Treatment Courts: Back to the Basics and Forward to Recovery - The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on mental health, substance use, overdoses, and housing and food insecurity. For rural drug court participants, basic needs, together with medical, psychosocial, behavioral, and functional needs, may not be met without careful assistance. With SAMHSA funding, the project will address participants’ physiological, medical, psychosocial, behavioral, and functional needs and, in turn, improve treatment engagement and thereafter recovery. The project will use case management, peer support, and treatment coordination to connect participants with the supports needed for recovery.
The project will serve non-violent criminal justice-involved adults in two adult treatment courts who have a co-occurring substance use and mental health or trauma-related disorder. As the opiate crisis has escalated in Cayuga County during the pandemic, the project will place emphasis on participants with a heroin, opioid or synthetic drug use history. It is estimated that 40 people will be served per year, for a total project population served of 200 throughout the lifetime of the project.
Grant funds will be used to expand access to treatment services for participants in two existing adult treatment courts: Auburn Drug and Alcohol Treatment Court (ADATC) and Cayuga County Felony Alcohol and Drug Treatment Court (CCFADTC). Funds will support direct services, including the evidence-based program of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), case management, and peer support. The program will be recovery-oriented with a focus on managing needs from basic needs to treatment engagement through recovery; be trauma-informed by providing trauma-informed care to those with trauma histories; and ensure behavioral health equity by promoting access to high quality and affordable health care for all participants.
Case management and peer support will be used to address participants’ urgent basic needs and support participants in their recovery journey. Using motivational interviewing and CBT, participants will be taught ways to use problem-solving skills to deal with difficult situations, including pandemic-related stress and trauma. A Treatment Facilitator will coordinate training of staff and coordination of services to participants from our two Treatment Courts. The project will provide CBT in treatment and utilize case management and peer support to assist participants in practicing CBT skills outside of the treatment setting.
The goals of the project are to support treatment engagement and recovery by addressing participants’ physiological, psychosocial, behavioral, functional, and other needs and reduce relapse and recidivism through treatment services, medication assisted treatment, case management, peer support, and best practices. Measurable objectives include connecting participants with services to support their physiological needs; connecting participants with health insurance and equity-based medical care; performing risk and needs assessments; addressing criminogenic needs through program referrals; assessing for treatment needs and connecting with treatment services; connecting participants to sober supports and activities; expanding access to integrated treatment by implementing the EBP of cognitive behavioral therapy at our partner treatment agency; and providing annual training to staff and teams.
