Now that Pulaski County’s Veterans Treatment Court is fully certified, the county is seeking funds to launch another problem-solving court. Superior Court Judge Crystal Brucker Kocher told the county commissioners Monday that the veterans court got its certification on January 24, following a two-day review by the state.
“They came in, reviewed our policies, our procedures, spoke with each of the individuals who are involved with that,” Kocher explained. “We got our three-year certification, so we are good to go there. We have four participants now, moving on to five and hopefully six soon.”
The veterans court had been operating under a temporary certification since last April. Kocher said the county is applying for $130,000 from the Indiana Office of Court Services to fund the program for another year.
Meanwhile, Circuit Court Judge Mary Welker reported that efforts are underway to apply for $121,000 to launch a family recovery court. “We’re planning to start, then, having family treatment court, assuming we get provisional approval, this fall,” she said, “so that we can start processing those families and moving forward with that, which I think is going to be a good answer to some of the problems that we have with both juveniles and adults involved in the system.”
The county is also applying for funding to continue its Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative. JDAI Coordinator Dr. Natalie Daily-Federer said that while there’s still funding available for the programming itself, the grant will no longer fund coordination costs.
Judge Welker said she plans to use $15,000 in juvenile probation user fee revenues to cover those costs for the year. She will ask the county council for permission to spend that money on Monday. The hope is that those costs could be rolled into the family recovery court grant in the future.
