Culture Counts in the Poarch Tribal Healing To Wellness Court

When the Department of Justice reviewed the Poarch Creek Tribal Healing to Wellness Court, participants spoke eloquently about how exploring cultural issues helped them discover the strength to battle their addictions and the other issues that led to their drug related arrests. The program educator talked about how this is beneficial for the Creek, whose traditional lifeways have all but vanished.

"Learning about their culture gives them a foundation for their identity, who they are, who their ancestors were, the way their ancestors lived. . . . The theme is the missing piece or between two worlds. What I do with them, we took some time to explore, to compare, this is very generalized, Indian ways vs. non Indian ways of thinking, the emphasis on competition vs. cooperation, we looked at a lot of that and talked about the fact that we’re in a non Indian world and helped them to find the aspects of themselves that are very Indian. They still think that way, but they’ve never processed it, they realize they see things this way because they have an Indian background."

When Native people join together to share ideas, resources and best practices for combatting drugs in our communities, we realize how much strength we can draw from our culture and from each other. June 19-20, join our expert Native trainers in Nashville, TN for a two-day exploration of drugs of abuse and drug endangered children. We'll help you and other Native professionals strategize solutions that work for your tribal communities. Register now for this tuition-free training.

Drug Courts: Success Stories and Funding Opportunities

Throwing drug offenders in jail without addressing the problems that led to their arrest is a recipe for recidivism. In Indian Country, drug and alcohol offenders fill the courts, crowd the jails, and usually end up re-offending after their release. To end this destructive pattern, tribes across the nation have successfully implemented tribal healing to wellness courts. Tribal leaders of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe were initially reluctant to join a partnership with the state of Minnesota and the county courts, but with only two reoffending graduates after seven years, they are now vocal advocates of the wellness court, which also accepts DWI offenders. The tribe recently won an award for court innovation from the National Criminal Justice Association.

Participants in a tribal healing to wellness court work hard on their sobriety, involve family and community in their healing, and engage in traditional healing ceremonies, like sweats. Program staff do their part by  monitoring, meeting with and randomly drug and alcohol testing participants, and updating the tribal and county judges on each person's progress. This model works no matter where it's implemented; there is a very successful drug court serving Harris County, TX.

What's the drawback to tribal healing to wellness or drug courts? Without more judges, staff and service providers, courts can only handle a few people at a time. The Ojibwe and Cass County court supports a maximum of 25 offenders at a time and even the Houston court can only accommodate 50 offenders at a time. The Department of Justice BJA and OJJDP both have currently open grant solicitations to implement sustainable family drug court programs and adult drug court programs (link to PDF).