Supervising and managing a multidisciplinary team can be challenging. Take this opportunity to listen to and ask questions of experts in the field of problem-solving court teams. Learn tips on how to facilitate team communication, manage team conflict, and many other topics. 

Through the Gender Unicorn “journey,” Participants will gain understanding about persons in the LGBTQ+ community diagnosed with mental illness. 

Learning Objectives: 

1. Create an affirming environment for LGBTQ+ individuals in mental health settings. 
2. Identify differences between biological sex, gender identity, gender expression and attraction as related to mental health services. 
3. Demonstrate respect and support for those in the LGBTQ+ community. 
4. Understand concerns related to “coming out” during treatment. 
5. Encourage professionals, peers and support systems to challenge assumptions regarding everything from coming out to pronoun use.
6. Consider how discrimination, prejudice, denial of civil and human rights, harassment and family rejection can lead to new or worsened mental health symptoms.

Illinois’ Community Emergency Services and Supports Act (CESSA) requires the creation and maintenance of an alternative response to community mental health crises. This complex work represents a significant shift from traditional first responses rooted primarily in law enforcement, and is raising important issues related to politics, justice, race and technology. Dr. Lorrie Jones and Peter Eckart are supporting the implementation of CESSA on behalf of the state’s Division of Mental Health, Department of Human Services. They will describe work happening statewide in Illinois, and how the Illinois experience builds on similar state and local initiatives around the country.

Core Correctional Practices (CCP) is a new probation training initiative in the State of Illinois. The State of Illinois is currently working to train probation staff and management in this new way to work with our clients. Much like the way we need to work with participants in the problem-solving courts, we are training staff to work with clients at all levels of probation in a similar way. The style of presentation would be educational/lecture but with some crowd interaction to emphasize the importance of this training material. 

Participants will learn:

1. What Core Correctional Practices (CCP) are and the importance of it in probation, including our problem-solving courts.
2. Ways to work with our clients in appropriate ways, whether it be for positive or negative reasons.
3. Promote the importance of this initiative to get all staff in the State of Illinois Trained in CCP.

This workshop is designed to provide participants with the knowledge to make informed decisions on choosing & implementing evidence-based therapy options for adult and juvenile clients. An emphasis is placed on substance abuse & criminal justice. 

Learning Objectives:

1. Discuss what works and does not work in treatment through implementation of motivational interviewing
2. Learn statistics on substance abuse, co-occurring disorders, and recidivism as well as the link between antisocial personality disorder, substance abuse, and incarceration
3. Gain insights on popular treatment approaches and how to choose evidence-based practices appropriate for their individual program settings

Discussed will be the Illinois Governor’s Challenge to Prevent Suicide Among Service Members, Veterans and their Families. The new online training portal and warning signs of people at risk of death by suicide will be introduced.

This session will provide a basic overview of gambling disorder, the role of gambling disorder on crime, challenges for legally involved disordered gamblers, implications of criminal involvement help-seeking, and available resources for those impacted by disordered gambling. Attendees will be able to: identify signs and symptoms of gambling disorder, articulate various crimes related to gambling disorder, list obstacles encountered by legally involved disordered gamblers, and identify resources to help those affected by disordered gambling. The presentation will utilize a web-based presentation program (that allows for interactive questions and answers).

All problem-solving courts have their challenges. This presentation will focus on challenges that are unique or heightened for drug courts in smaller, rural communities. Illinois Supreme Court Problem-Solving Courts Standards and Best Practices requirements will be examined and panel members from drug courts throughout the mainly rural and under-resourced Illinois Second Circuit will discuss ways to meet those standards and best practices. Being aware that resources and available options vary from county to county, attendees will be encouraged to share their solutions to common challenges, as well. Among the topics which will be considered are supervision with limited probation resources, meeting best practice requirements for testing and for treatment, obtaining buy-in from local law enforcement, judiciary, prosecutors, and the community, exploring options for transportation, education, and employment, and addressing team chemistry challenges.  

Learning Objectives:

1. Recognize the role of harm reduction on the recovery continuum.
2. Apply evidence-based harm reduction and treatment services for substance use disorders, particularly OUD.
3. Incorporate person-centered language in the care of patients with SUD.

This session will review and discuss recent Illinois legislation that may be relevant to problem-solving courts. It will also look at ways people can track future legislation and even potentially have an impact on how it evolves.

Goodwill Industries is a non-profit social enterprise that provides services throughout the state to individuals who have involvement in the justice system. Three Goodwill organizations throughout the state of Illinois, Goodwill’s headquartered in Springfield, Peoria, and Rockford, share program information, opportunities to connect, and resources for individuals involved in the justice system.

Military service has a unique and long-lasting impact on current and former service members. For those that become justice-involved, the learned cultural values, ethics, and standards applied during their service can be leveraged with the participant by the VTC Team in a manner and context that will benefit the participant, the participant’s immediate support network, and the overall community.

Learning Objectives: 

1. Describe how serving in the military may have a long-lasting impact and influence on the service member, their family, and their interconnectedness to others. 
2. Identify how and why veterans’ learning styles and responses to interventions can differ substantially from each other.
3. Identify skills and examine approaches that may more effectively address the needs of justice-involved veterans. 

In a recent study released by NHTSA, the data revealed that alcohol-involved crashes in 2019 resulted in 14,219 fatalities, 497,000 nonfatal injuries, and $68.9 billion in economic costs. In 2013, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) endorsed DUI Courts as a proven strategy for rehabilitating repeat driving while impaired (DWI/DUI) offenders, with the goal of reducing recidivism and thus fatalities from drug and alcohol impaired drivers. DUI courts, founded on the same rigorous research that support drug courts, rely on best practices to guide courts and supervising officers in effective management of impaired drivers. This program will review research related to impaired driving, the benefits of starting a DUI court, the necessary stakeholders and policies to implement a local DUI court, funding of local impaired driving courts, developing DUI court phases, the importance of a multidisciplinary team, identifying appropriate participants through screening and assessment, and responding to client behavior through incentives, sanctions, and therapeutic adjustments. This program will also discuss the necessary steps to incorporate a DUI tract into an existing drug court.

Everyone needs and deserves safe, decent, stable housing. For some of the most vulnerable people in Illinois — people with mental illness, substance use, chronic health conditions, histories of trauma, and other struggles — a home helps them to get adequate treatment and start on the path toward self-sufficiency. But some conditions make it difficult for people to maintain a stable home without additional help. Supportive housing, a highly effective and proven strategy that combines affordable housing with intensive coordinated services, can provide that needed assistance.

Learning Objective:

This session will highlight resources, programs, and promising practices seeking to improve hosing stability for individuals with justice involvement. 

This session recognizes that working in certain professions or job situations can bring high levels of stress. In some cases, these stressors can lead to burnout, vicarious trauma, or compassion fatigue. In this workshop, we will clarify these terms so that you can use them appropriately. We will discuss the importance of being actively involved in self-care and how a workplace or work team can build resiliency.

Learning Objectives:

1. Learn the distinction and connection between burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious   trauma. 
2. Learn how compassion fatigue in some professions can be more likely and, therefore, the importance of building resiliency. 
3. Gain knowledge of how the workplace can assist in relieving compassion fatigue and building resiliency. 
4. Identify possible barriers to self-care.
5. Identify at least one self-care method you can realistically put into practice. 

The alumni group in Knox County started in 2021. The alumni group meets once a month and discusses program outings, fundraisers, events and ways to improve the program. The alumni are also available to meet with current drug court clients to lend support. There are approximately 15 alumni who come and participate in the meetings.

This presentation will focus on the struggles of one individual in active addiction and how he found his way to drug court. After a period of setbacks and struggles, the presenter will cover how he graduated from drug court and founded a nonprofit, recovery community organization based in community and grassroots efforts and set out on capacity and team building. The presentation will focus heavily on hope, motivation, and utilizing a network to not only recover but build a professional support system for growth while highlighting key ways to build a community.

Hope is alive and well. We do recover. Believing in ourselves and our communities sparks magic. Working together instead of against each other builds community for years to come. 

Participants in a veteran’s treatment court or veterans’ treatment docket will often have multiple challenges that are both seen and unseen. As they propel towards program completion, each multidisciplinary team member’s relationship and approach to guiding and empowering them through these challenges will vary from team member to team member. However, what should remain the same is each team member’s intent to foster or restore a sense of hope, meaning-making, and purpose in the 3 justice-involved veteran participant that extends far beyond the program’s length. This session will emphasize working with participants in a holistic manner that emboldens them in their everyday accomplishments while at the same time encouraging them to lead a purposeful life. This session will explore skills that team members can use to assist them when working with participants that may result in the individual practicing or developing behaviors that positively influence their quality-of-life choices in the present and future. 

Learning Objectives:

1. Define the complexity of the justice-involved population concerning potential VTC team member assumptions and biases that may impact their approach in the judicial setting. 
2. Identify literature and research concerning the role of hope, meaning making, and purpose in the health and well-being of specific populations. 
3. Describe the impact of social connectedness and ways of developing and enhancing it

This session has been cancelled

Individual Placement and Support (IPS) is a research-based approach to supported employment with 8 key principles. People receiving IPS services have been found to be three times more likely to become employed and work four times as many hours compared to control groups. While this employment model was designed to support people with serious mental illness, employment principles can be applied the IPS employment principles to all disabled populations with great success. 

Learning Objectives:

1. Learn relevant research behind implementing IPS supported employment with individuals that are justice-involved.
2. Understand how a current infrastructure exists and is funded across Illinois with IPS providers. 
3. Understand how teams across Illinois have placed IPS employment specialists in a specialty court setting to maximize employment outcomes and improve other life domains. 
4. Learn how to leverage Federal WIOA funded programs and how to develop a community-based work readiness program to better integrate employment into the participant’s plan.

The Rural Justice Collaborative (RJC), a partnership of NCSC and Rulo Strategies, launched in 2020 to identify innovative operations in rural justice systems that build on the strengths of rural communities and highlight the cross-sector collaboration that is the hallmark of a rural justice system. This presentation will highlight efforts across the RJC’s three priority areas (awareness, collaboration, and innovation) to exchange information, celebrate cross-sector collaboration and understanding between rural justice practitioners and other stakeholders, and shine the spotlight on local justice innovations that are bringing stakeholders to the table to identify solutions in rural justice systems. 

This presentation is an overview of the unintended consequences seen from the use of high potency THC products including cognitive problems, addiction, psychosis, worsening mental health, suicide, cannabis hyperemesis syndrome and violence.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand how today’s marijuana is not like the marijuana they may have experienced in the past. 
2. Report what levels of THC are supported by the literature for certain medical conditions and what levels have not been supported by research.
3. Describe the effect of THC on the developing brain.
4. Discuss the role high potency THC cannabis plays in addiction, anxiety, depression, suicide, psychosis, violence, cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, and cognitive impairment. 

The purpose of the presentation is to provide the audience with an overview of traumatic brain injury and its causes. Individuals living with disabilities from a brain injury are the largest disability group, second only to those with developmental disabilities. Due to the injury, there may be a variety of cognitive impairments as well as changes in behavioral/emotional status. The presentation will offer the audience techniques that may be implemented when working with an individual who has sustained a brain injury.

If you’re working with justice-involved veterans in any capacity, you may have recognized that their entry into the system is often due to impaired driving. The issues veterans present with and treating them can be complex. Impaired drivers are also a unique demographic, often presenting with co-occurring disorders, and the balance of treatment and ensuring public safety can be difficult. The intersection of veterans and impaired driving can be all the more challenging for treatment courts. This session will examine the unique demographics and behaviors of impaired drivers who are veterans to enable your program to respond to their needs. 

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will understand the unique demographics, behaviors, and needs of veterans and impaired drivers.
2. Participants will identify differences in case planning, program requirements, and responding to behaviors of impaired drivers.
3. Participants will recognize appropriate screening and assessment tools for impaired drivers to identify risk and need accurately