The Tulalip Tribes of Washington is applying for the Grants to Expand Substance Abuse Treatment Capacity in Adult and Family Treatment Drug Courts on behalf of the Tulalip Tribes’ Adult Healing to Wellness Court. Our target population is criminal defendants (who due to the jurisdiction of our Court is limited to adult Indian persons) struggling with a substance use disorder that contributed to their criminal charge(s). We will be providing services on the 22,000-acre Tulalip Reservation, more than 50 percent of which is in federal trust status. The Tulalip reservation is a mix of suburban and rural land types located in Washington directly north of the city of Everett and 30 miles north of Seattle.
Currently, Wellness Court participants are unable to access treatment services in a timely manner. The time between when a Wellness Court applicant begins the intake process and arrival at an inpatient treatment facility is several weeks to several months depending on custody status and staff availability. In addition, once a participant has been accepted into Wellness Court, they often lack sufficient family or community connection and support to cope with the many barriers to recovery. When participants are released from jail or inpatient treatment, they return to the same small community, the same friends, and often the same housing environment (or have no housing at all). The Goals of this years FY2022 Tulalip Tribes SAMHSA Treatment Court Project are:
• Goal 1: Reduce delays in treatment access
• Goal 2: Increase participant engagement and long-term success by providing culturally-based peer support to all program participants and graduates
• Goal 3: Assist every program participant in transiting to sober housing directly from treatment or jail
• Goal 4: Collect program data and prepare periodic analysis of Wellness Court program efficacy
While existing program staff have other competing priorities that lead to delays in scheduling assessments, arranging transportation, or securing a bed date, a newly hired Treatment Coordinator will be able to focus on the speed of treatment access. The Recovery Support Specialist hired under this grant will learn about local sober support groups, visiting the local recovery café, meeting our community’s trained recovery coaches, and learning about other local cultural and peer support resources. The Wellness Court Manager, who will be the Project Director of this grant, will reach out to area housing providers and use the promise of $1,500 per participant per year in housing assistance, combined with the good reputation of our program and past participants, to secure agreements with these housing providers that future vacancies will be offered to program participants.
This grant will give us the capacity to expand to 40 persons at a time through the additional support of the Treatment Coordinator and Recovery Support Specialist. We anticipate 20 new participants a year based on historical participant graduation and termination rates. Therefore, the total number of unduplicated individuals served during the grant period will be 110.