The National Center for State Courts helped to organize an educational program on using a comprehensive problem-solving approach to address substance abuse, domestic violence, mental health and other complex and difficult issues in court.

The center also developed a toolkit, which is available online, designed to aid judges and courts seeking to implement a problem-solving approach in court cases involving these and other complex issues.

Key Results

• The educational program was held as part of the annual meeting of the Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators in Salt Lake City, on July 28, 2004. Approximately 112 chief justices and state court administrators attended.
• The session included these components:
  • The history, purpose and benefits of comprehensive problem-solving court processes.
  • Examples of efforts to integrate problem-solving principles into the court system, including the development of specialized courts dealing with drug addiction, mental health and domestic violence.
  • Judicial and court manager concerns related to the approach.
  • A special session that provided court policy leaders the opportunity to identify steps they could take to expand the use of the problem-solving approach in their states.
• The center developed the "Problem-Solving Justice Toolkit," which is available online. According to its developers:
  • The toolkit's primary audience is local and state court officials interested in the problem-solving approach.
  • It can be used by individual judges who aspire to improve their decision-making, as well as committees seeking to create a separate docket to address specific cases such as those involving substance abuse, mental health or domestic violence.

Funding

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) provided two grants totaling $146,830 from August 2003 to April 2005 to support this project.