“People, Places, and Things”: Understanding the Context of Participants Lives in a Diversion Drug Court

• In Event: Getting Out of Court: Specialty Courts and Diversion

Abstract

Purpose: The goal of this research is to better understand the contextual life struggles participants face while participating in a diversion drug court and team member responses.
Design & Data: This presentation reports results of our first two years of observations during a BJA-funded evaluation of the Marion County Diversion Drug Court (MCDDC). We used a structured observation instrument but also took freehand notes during our observations of staff meetings (N=119, 107.57 hours) and court dockets (N=147, 145.05 hours) involving 129 participants. Here, we use thematic analysis, starting with an observation-informed preliminary coding scheme and including more codes as relevant during analysis to examine the themes of conversations recorded in our freehand notes.
Findings: Themes included participant mental & physical health issues, experience with both prosocial relationships and drug use by family and friends, and a variety of treatment barriers in addition to housing, transportation, financial, and job barriers. We also observed team member concerns about treatment providers, participants’ other legal issues, and concerns about how participants interact with each other.
Conclusions: Some findings parallel prior analysis of team member notes in the administrative data system. However, several themes are unique and help researchers and practitioners better understand participant lives.

Authors

• Elizabeth Hartsell, Sam Houston State University

• McKenzie Jossie, University of Florida

• Jodi Lane, University of Florida