Pulaski County’s court system is once again looking to bring in thousands of dollars of grant funding for its programs. Circuit Court Judge Mary Welker told the county commissioners Monday that the county was granted almost $53,000 for the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative. “This month, we have 30 students receiving services in our JDAI program, as well as 13 in our truancy program,” Welker explained.
Since the JDAI grant no longer covers administrative costs, Welker said the plan is to roll it into the new family treatment court. She said that program has gotten $97,500 in grant funding. “What I see, as a judge, having practiced for a number of years, is that we have parents now who are having children who are involved with the welfare system, and those parents were welfare children, DCS children, children in need of services when they were children, as were their parents,” Welker said. “And so we’re going to try to work with the whole family so that the family can recover as a whole.”
Meanwhile, Superior Court Judge Crystal Kocher said her veterans treatment court has now been fully functional and certified for over a year, with two graduates and six participants currently involved. She said having access to a clinical addictions counselor has greatly sped up the process of getting people the treatment they need, once they enter the criminal justice system.
“Now, we are actually, within 48 hours of arrest, getting him down there, sometimes, to do an evaluation or at least presenting that option to them, and then we can get them going on treatment, so that they are receiving treatment the entire time their case is going through the system, and it’s really important in terms of outcomes and the recidivism rate that we have,” Kocher said.
She said the veterans court is seeking more than $125,000 this year, up from the $79,000 it got last year. The commissioners unanimously agreed to let the courts move forward with all three grants.
