FIVE KEY PRINCIPLES IN HELPING PEOPLE CHANGE:IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICIES AND PRACTICES IN DRUG AND TREATMENT COURTS

Keynote or Breakout

Description

When justice-involved individuals agree to drug or treatment court, they do not necessarily want recovery from Day 1. There usually are other things they want that prompted their agreeing to treatment. As treatment courts and providers work to change the participant’s criminal thinking and behaviors that threaten the public safety, it is important to understand the key principles of change that cross all methods and models of change.

This presentation will outline five key principles arising from decades of research on how people change; and discuss the implications for engagement, assessment, treatment and retention in drug and treatment courts.

Objectives

Participants will:

• Review key principles on how to help people change and engage participants in accountable change.

• Identify how to better assess people's readiness to change and how to quickly develop the treatment court contract and active participation. 

• Discuss policies and practices that enhance participants’ motivation to make lasting change.