NDRI Expands Cultural Proficiency Training for Drug Court Practitioners
NDRI’s Training Institute has received funding from The U.S. Department of Justice to continue and expand upon our national drug court staff training program. NDRI will continue to deliver evidence-based curricula on cultural proficiency to drug courts working with African American populations and to extend the scope to Latino populations.
From 2002 through 2003 NDRI developed and field-tested the ‘Cultural Proficiency for Drug Court Practice’ 2-day training. In subsequent years, with continued Bureau of Justice Assistance BJA funding, NDRI has revised and delivered the course nationally twelve times. The curriculum emphasizes working with African American participants because of their disproportionate representation in the criminal justice system.
Each delivery of the training includes:
- Needs Assessment - conducted prior to its delivery in order to tailor the training to the needs of the Drug Court region,
- Delivery of the 2-day training to drug court practitioners, and
- Full Evaluation consisting of pre/post and 1-month follow-up measures.
The current year’s project will: 1) deliver the full curriculum six additional times, training at least 150 experienced drug court practitioners from at least 30 different drug court teams nationally; 2) write a revised culturally competent curriculum focusing on Latinos and field-test it nationally three times in targeted regions serving large Latino populations with at least 75 experienced drug court practitioners from at least 15 different drug court teams; and, 3) deliver ten 1.25-hour promotional workshops during the course of the year, reaching another 200 drug court practitioners.
Funding for this program was made by the The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Edward Byrne Memorial Competitive Grant Program.
For more information, please contact: Diana Padilla, Cultural Proficiency Program Manager at 212.845.4564 or email
October, 2008