Treatment Court: Is Yours Sustainable? (Part Two)

Part Two – Marketing Your Treatment Court

Typically, the court system does not promote or advertise its work.  Sadly, it is not like the court system has a shortage of “clients.” There is no need to advertise. Even worse, many of its “clients” are repeat customers.  The same is true for Treatment Courts; there is no shortage of participants.  However, the promotion or marketing of your Treatment Court is not to increase your census, it is to ensure your program is sustainable. 

Why Promote Your Treatment Court?

Some Treatment Courts indicate they are already fully funded by their governmental agency, whether it is the national, state, or local community or a grant.[1]Thus a belief existed that there is no need to worry about promoting the program.  My question to those courts is  ”What happens when the political winds shift?”  It is great that they have the resources they currently need—which is rare—but will that support continue in 5 years or 10 years down the road?  Will that support continue if there is a change with the controlling political party? That is why getting the community involved as well as political leaders from all sides is important for sustainability.  If such a program is perceived as only politically left or politically right, then the other political persuasion may say Treatment Courts are terrible; either they are soft on crime or criminally punishing someone with a disease.  Or if a Treatment Court is believed to be ineffective, with little known about its success, there will be very little support for its continuation. Demonstrating that Treatment Courts hold individuals accountable, require intensive work by the participants and have benefits far and beyond “business as usual.” .  True sustainability leads to institutionalization and support by everyone in the community for the long-term.

How to Promote Your Treatment Court

A tried and true way to promote your treatment court is to invite community leaders and the media[2]to your graduations.  Treatment Court graduations are compelling displays of success; they are demonstrations that change is possible for everyone.  When community leaders hear your graduates’ stories and see the powerful results, they begin to understand just what it means to successfully complete your intensive program.  However, that is only one small effort in promoting your Treatment Court.  It takes more.

Start at the Beginning

Are you in the planning stages of creating a Treatment Court?  One Treatment Court team invited a reporter from the local paper to sit in on the planning stages for the future Drug Court.  This allowed the reporter to learn about the court from the ground up, and at the same time hear about the benefits and the reasons for supporting it, and observe all of the agencies supporting the concept.  The reporter then wrote about the new effort before it had even started, discussing the reasons why it was needed and how everyone was coming together to be more effective with substance use dependent individuals.  That court was creating community support before the Treatment Court was even established. 

Every community has local service groups, faith based organizations, and school activities. Treatment Court team members should be out in the community speaking at their meetings, talking of the successes and why these programs are important for the community.  If you are keeping track of your court’s data,[3]this should be fairly easy to pull together some impressive statistics.  But it is more than statistics that will gain your program’s acceptance.  Talking about a participant’s change, the ability to bring families back together, ensuring that a baby was born healthy and drug free are all bits and pieces of the full picture.  If a graduate is willing to speak, invite that person to join other team members to discuss his or her success in the program. Those heartfelt endorsements bring the effort full circle—the community’s mind and its heart.

Most communities also have local governmental agencies that provide support for the program.  Speaking at their board meetings and providing detailed information about the cost savings and the successes of the program lays the groundwork for long-term support and success.  In Orange County, California, the Treatment Courts put together an annual report discussing the success of the programs located in that county and why they should be continued.  A few years ago, there was discussion by the local governmental agency on discontinuing some of the Treatment Court programs because of funding concerns.  The annual reports along with a variety of success stories convinced the community leaders to support the programs. 

Elsewhere a Treatment Court actually adopted a mile of a highway for regular cleanup.  They used that stretch of highway to allow for community service hours for participants, but remember that there is typically a sign that says this portion being supported by X.  This is one more way to raise awareness and at the same time support the community.

Other options include creating a variety of publications discussing the success of the program.  Has your program had babies born who are drug free because of the work you do?  How much does that save in societal costs for a child born drug-affected ? How much are you saving because of the work of your program?  Jails are typically the most expensive cost for the justice system. How many days of jail have you saved by using intensive supervision and long-term treatment?  Are your participants now working in the communitybecause of your court?  How much is that saving governmental agencies?  All of these numbers can be determined with a little digging.  Developing flyers and brochures discussing these savings can provide the needed information for your community to understand the benefits and to support your program for the long term.  

Furthermore, in today’s technological society, you may even want to consider your own website and/or social media channels.  Many courts have a page on the governmental website.  But can you provide stories of success on it?  Can you have your statistics about the money you are saving the community on that website?  Websites addresses are fairly inexpensive to obtain, and with all of the tools out there to design them, most anyone can do it with a small budget.[4]  The true cost is a person’s time.  Social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, are free except for a person’s time to post and keep track of them.

Public Campaigns

When promoting your Treatment Court, learn about the various public awareness campaigns happening in your area.  In the United States, May is National Drug Court Month and Mental Health Month, April is Alcohol Awareness Month, and December is Impaired Driving Prevention Month to name a few options.  These are golden opportunities to promote your Treatment Court while discussing the awareness campaign.  For example, during Impaired Driving Prevention Month, submit an article to your local newspaper discussing how DWI Courts combat impaired driving along with your statistics showing success.  Possibly your Mental Health Treatment Court could talk about the issues of mental illness in May or also during Mental Illness Awareness Week in October.  An article could discus what is needed to recognize some of the problems and support any efforts to overcome the stigma of mental illness.   For May, the National Association of Drug Court Professionals even has designed a kit for treatment courts to use and promote during May’s Drug Court Month.  A similar kit was designed for DWI Courts in December. With a little research, those kits can be adapted to any number of public awareness campaigns. 

The bottom line is that it is very easy to use these types of national and global awareness promotions to highlight the work you are doing to change behaviors and save lives.  It is one more way to make sure your Treatment Court is a well-known program that will be supported by all.

Being Prepared

Finally, one more reason to promote your Treatment Court is to prepare for the worst.  With the proper participant population—High Risk, High Need—Treatment Courts have greater success than the standard courts. However, it is this very population that concerns critics who think we should just lock those individuals up and throw away the key.  There is always the possibility of an adverse event created by a participant that could turn into a PR nightmare.

Treatment Courts have a wealth of success stories, but no court has 100% success.  We should and will continue to strive for greater success, but we are dealing with human beings, not robots so there will be some individuals who are not successful in the program.  What happens if that person relapses and then robs a gas station while armed with a handgun?  What happens if an impaired driver kills someone, and that person had been in a DWI Court?  It will be easy for critics to latch onto that situation and try to apply it in a general fashion against your Treatment Court.

Don’t think it will happen? I know of a specific situation where a DWI Court participant was discharged from the program unsuccessfully and shortly after that did drive impaired and killed someone.  But that DWI Court had been in existence for over 10 years with a vast base of support in the community and with community leaders. There was no outcry against the DWI Court; there was recognition that it works and should continue.  But that kind of community support takes effort promoting the court and demonstrating to the community why it is an important component in turning participants into law-abiding citizens, saving the public’s tax dollars, and ultimately creating safer communities for everyone. It is that kind of community support that can create a long-term sustainable program.

Sustainability Series

In this series of articles on Treatment Court Sustainability, I discuss the importance of creating a long-term plan and some of the issues that can arise in ensuring your Treatment Court is sustainable.  This series includes discussion on:

1. A Sustainability Plan (Part I),
2. Marketing your Treatment Court (Part II),
3. Non-Monetary Resources—Your Community in Action (Part III),
4. Show Me the Money (Part IV).

Footnotes:

[1]  For a further discussion on funding, see Part 4 of this series and remember that in terms of grants, they are always temporary.

[2] With the media, be sure to set some ground rules on what will be allowed such as the taking or not taking of pictures and/or publishing the names of graduating participants.  Out of respect for the participants, many courts do not allow the use of full names.  Some graduates may talk with the media, but be sure to discuss it with them firsthand.

[3]  Keeping track of your data—successes, failures and more—is critically important for sustainability.  If you are not keeping track, you can’t demonstrate true success.

[4]  I can say that with personal knowledge. Four years ago I had an extremely limited understanding about websites.  Now I have created and I maintain almost a dozen websites.

Remember you have a team of individuals, and that there are community resources you may be able to tap for assistance or possibly a college student or even a high school student would donate his or her time to create it.  See Part 3 of Sustainability for a further discussion of this option.