Inside This Issue
Volume 3, Issue 3September 2013
A Publication by the
2013 Officersand Directors
Tennessee Association of Drug Court Professionals
TADCP9th AnnualDrug Conference2Nine Years Plus OneEquals Ten3Morgan CountyResidential RecoveryCourt Opens3The President’sCorner3Williamson CountyDUI Court CelebratesGraduation4MembershipApplication4
PresidentMary SchneiderVice PresidentTracye BryantTreasurerBrad PriceSecretaryRick TaylorWest Tennessee DirectorAngela ParkersonMiddle Tennessee DirectorMike LewisEast Tennessee DirectorJudge Charles CernyAt Large DirectorsRon HanaverKevin BattsJill Barrett
The Madison area experienced catastrophicflooding on August 8th, due to seven inches of rain falling in just over 2 hours. This downpourcaused the riversand creeks inthe area to risequickly andflood the sur-rounding homes. A men’s homeat RecoveryCommunity,Inc., a serviceprovider forDivision XTreatment courtin Davidson County was caught in the midst of the current. Waist high water filled the house asclothes, shoes and personal items floated downthe street while the residents were escaping withthe few things theycould save. Eight res-idents were displacedthat day, but each oneof them remainedhopeful and cametogether to immedi-ately get into thesolution.Lyn Noland, direc-tor of the programcalled a landlorddown the street whohad promised a house to her that would beready in early October due to the fact that itneeded to be com-pletely remodeled.Well, with displacedclients, October was-n’t quick enough.She got the key, andwith the help of afew of her clients,the remodeling start-ed that day.Presiding DrugCourt Judge, CaseyMoreland came to the rescue. He coordinated aDrug Court Community Service Project the nextSaturday and Wednesday. Over 80 Drug CourtClients took shifts to drywall,paint, reinforcefloors and cleanup the property.Nancy Derrick,Drug CourtCoordinator forDivision X wasbusy bringingdonations anddonuts and kepteveryone on theirtoes! Recovery Community staff and residentswere overwhelmed at the outpouring of loveand support by the Drug Court Team and thehard work of all the clients.Thanks to JudgeMoreland and hisstaff, the residents arecomfortable in theirnew home and areable to continue their journey of recovery.When the disasterstruck, Nolandoffered to find otherplacement for herguys, as she knew thiscould be seen as ahuge stumbling block in early recovery. Theywould have to sleep on couches, and double upin rooms for a few weeks. They all refused,saying, "We don’t mind. We all needed a placeto stay clean, and you helped us with that, nowwe can be here to help you". And that, folks,is what recovery is all about!
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Over 80 DrugCourt clients took shifts to drywall, paint,reinforce floors and clean up the property.
Page 2Tennessee Association of DrugCourt Professionals
T
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SSOCIATION OF
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ROFESSIONALS
9
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NNUAL
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ONFERENCE
WHEN:
December 11 – 13, 2013
WHERE:
The Embassy Suites & Conference Center,Murfreesboro, Tennessee 615-890-4464,Group Code DCP. Rooms are limited!
REGISTRATION:
www.tadcpconference9.ezre
gister.com(canalso be accessed on the TADCP website,www.tadcptn.org
).
As the weather turns chilly, things will be warmingup at the Tennessee Association of Drug CourtProfessionals 9th Annual Drug Court Conference. Setto be held once again at the Embassy Suites andConference Center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, therewill be a fantastic line up of national speakers present-ing relevant and current information to aid recoverycourt teams. Here’s a brief introduction to the speak-ers who will be featured:Dan Griffin, Presidentof Dan GriffinEnterprises, Inc., was asmash hit at the confer-ence last year. Hisinsightful, humorous,and relevant presenta-tions made him a confer-ence favorite. This year,Dan is back! He will bepresenting on the trau-ma-focused work of Stephanie Covington inone of our general sessions and again at a breakoutfocusing specifically on men’s treatment. If you want more information about Dan and thework he is doing, check out his website at www.dan-griffin.com. You can also check out more of Covington’s work athttp://www.stephaniecovington.com/.Because of the feedback we received last year, par-ticularly from our treatmentfolks, Dan will be joinedby a co-presenter duringthe general session to talk about trauma-informedcare. She’s our mysteryspeaker at this point, but assoon as we have a solidconfirmation we’ll announce her! In addition to thegeneral session with Dan, she will also do a women’sspecific treatment breakout. Back for a second roundas well is Dr. MerrillNorton, the pharmacist andprofessor from theUniversity of Georgia thatexplained our brain ondrugs in a way that delight-ed as well as educated.Who knew we could all sitand listen to a detailedexplanation of brain chem-istry without fallingasleep? Your evaluationsasked us to bring him back with more time, so we did just that. Dr. Norton will do a workshop for us onFriday that will expand on the presentation he did lastyear, focusing on trauma. He is the final and sole pre-senter for Friday, so don’t worry; you don’t have towonder what you’ll miss by attending his workshop!You can find more about Dr. Norton herehttp://cap.rx.uga.edu/index.php/people/faculty/norton/ There’s more!Honorable Peggy Hora(retired), a SeniorJudicial Fellow withthe National DrugCourt Institute and aJudicial OutreachLiaison with theNational HighwayTraffic SafetyAdministration, will beback with us this yearto provide our recoverycourt judges withupdates in case law, research, and other points of vitalinterest. Some of you may remember Judge Hora’stenacious spirit and candor from the workshop shepresented in 2010, here at the Embassy Suites. Basedon your evaluations, she was well received and provid-ed great information, so we are happy to have herback. Even though she is retired, Judge Hora has stayedvery busy. You can see what she has been doing onher website http://www.judgehora.com/. The Coordinator’s had the opportunity to meet thisbreath of fresh air at their training at Paris LandingState Park in May. Honorable Peggy Davis, a circuitcourt judge from the 31st Judicial District in Missouri,will do two presentations at the conference. She willdiscuss an overview of the latest research and imple-mentation on providing different tracks to drug courtparticipants with different needs, and then a separatebreakout geared toward our judges on how to imple-ment these differenttracks for the program.The Coordinatorsreceived some of thisinformation at their Maytraining, and askedTADCP to have hercome share with every-one else at the confer-ence this year. JudgeDavis is excited to comeback to Tennessee inDecember, and we arehappy to have her!If you attended the NADCP conference inBaltimore this year, you may have seen her. You cansee a brief biography on Judge Davis athttp://www.mobar.org/conferences/sasf/2012/comm-peggydavis.htm.It is possible to have both Judges Hora and Davispresent at our conference because of funding from theNational Drug Court Institute. The National DrugCourt Institute, which is the training and technicalassistance arm of the National Association of DrugCourt Professionals, receives these funds from theDepartment of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance.Please be sure to thank our partners at NADCP andNDCI for their continued work and support on behalf of specialty courts in Tennessee and across the country(www.nadcp.org
).It might be hard to believe that there’s even moregreat stuff to see and hear at the conference this year,but believe it! TADCP has a great line up of localspeakers too! Experts from the state and local agen-cies will be there to talk about what’s relevant torecovery courts now. You’ll also see and hear from agreat mix of sponsors this year, with several newsponsors for you to learn about and with which to con-nect. Check out the schedule, and register today!
Page 3Tennessee Association of DrugCourt Professionals
TADCP M
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On July 3rd I had foot surgery for a torn tendon on thetop of my foot. Little did I know what I was getting into!I thought I would be back to work by July 30th, but as Iwrite this on September 5th, I still haven’t returned towork. Oh, I have answered email and phone calls. I haveeven snuck into the office on a couple of Saturdays tocomplete some required reports. But lots of stuff hasn’tgotten done, or has just been put off until later.I have utilized Skype to actually interview and hire anew employee. I have also used it to do supervision withan intern we have. Technology is a great thing and Ican’t imagine how this extended time off would havegone had I not had these tools. Also, I have a very com-petent staff who was able to continue with their everydaywork lives without a lot of input from me.The Board of Directors of TADCP is also putting tech-nology to work. We are now subscribing to ZOOM,which is a video conferencing service. This has allowedus to have a meeting every other month without everyonetravelling from the ends of the state. One of our commit-tees has met through ZOOM as well, which was a hugetime saver for those involved. This has saved us hun-dreds of dollars in mileage to the board members as wellas travel time. We hope that this will encourage othermembers to be on the board since it is so much easier tocommunicate and meet now. We will still meet in persononce or twice a year, but we will also see each other atthe TADCP Conference and the Coordinators Conference. We are saying goodbye to Marianne Schroer.Marianne was the Coordinator for the 21st Judicial DrugCourt. She has left to become the Director of CASA(Court Appointed Special Advocate). Marianne has beenvery helpful on the Board and was instrumental in mak-ing our last Day On The Hill such a success. We willmiss her input and wish her well in her new position. Bythe time you read this, we hope to have a new person toreplace her on the board.Finally, the TADCP Conference is getting nearer.Marie Crosson has worked very hard to bring us sometop quality speakers. It has been a team effort with lotsof input from the board and DMHSAS. Please read herarticle about the conference in this newsletter. We arehoping you will peruse our new website when you gothere to register for the conference. It is still evolving,but we think it has a lot of features that you, as a memberof TADCP, will enjoy.
Regards,Mary Schneider, LAPSW
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It’s hard to believe that the first drug courtconference, which was really a small training,was held over nine years ago. That first train-ing, which had less than 100 in attendance,was in no small part due to the individualswho spent countless hours of time and effort tocreate the bill for drug courts that became lawin 2003. While Tennessee had strong drugcourts already in existence, the drug court leg-islation was a major leap in our legitimacy anda glaring acknowledgment by people in posi-tions of power of our existence. Among manyother things, that legislation also providedfunding for drug court training. Such is the nature of your growth. Within afew short years, the annual drug court trainingwent from a good-sized, single-day workshopto the all out multi-day conference we havetoday. More drug courts were created, andmore people needed training. Drug courtsimproved collaboration, and more people need-ed training. Drug courts are now matureenough to experience turnover on the team andnew staff, so more people need training. It is atestament to the effectiveness of leadership; thegrassroots leadership that has defined the spe-cialty court movement across the country, andcertainly in Tennessee. This brief history lesson is intended to shareone very important message; the drug courtconference is YOUR conference. The individ-uals who serve as TADCP board members doso at your service, and they volunteer eachyear to make YOUR conference the best it canbe. They listen to feedback during the confer-ence, read what is written on the evaluations,and review information from other confer-ences, especially the national conference. Themost valuable thing you can do to let themknow what you want at YOUR conference isto call, email, or better yet, fill out the evalua-tions at the conference. They do read them! If you have completed an evaluation in the pastand your suggestion was not implemented, it’smost likely because it requires additional fund-ing, is not an option at the hotel venue, orbecause more individuals disagreed with youthan agreed. An example of the importance of feedback is the recent survey TADCP conduct-ed asking TADCP members about interest ineither moving the annual conference to a sum-mer month (July or August) or leaving it inDecember. Out of 45 respondents, 40% wantto move the conference to the summer, while60% want to leave it in December. YOURopinion counts. Please share it!Because we skipped a year of conferencingin 2011, you may not realize that this year isreally the 10th Anniversary not only of theexistence of the drug court conference but of the Drug Court Legislation. Let that fact sink in for a minute. Coming together in Decemberwill be a chance to recognize the importanceof 10 years. The graduate parade scheduledfor the opening ceremony will be a greatopportunity for us all to celebrate how farwe’ve come. Truly, it is far.
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On July 31, 2013, Governor Bill Haslam cutthe ribbon at the Morgan County ResidentialRecovery Court. The statewide100 bed maleresidential court is located in the annex adja-cent to the Morgan County Correctional facili-ty. This residential recovery court programserves nonviolent male felony offenders whoare in need of more intensive treatment servic-es to help them succeed in their recovery jour-ney. Presently, nine certified drug courtsacross the state are making referrals toMorgan County Residential RecoveryCourt .The referring courts are sendingparticipants from their programs that are atrisk of being violated and entering into thestate prison system. Once the participantfinishes programming at MCRRC they willtransition back to their home court to fin-ish out their final phases. Morgan CountyResidential Recovery Court is a collaborativeproject between the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Servicesand the Tennessee Department of Corrections.Both departments are committed to enhancingpositive partnerships among the recoverycourts, public agencies, and community-basedorganizations to continue to generate supportand enhance the positive impact of recoverycourt programs across the state.
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