This brief by Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Use Program (COSSUP) along with RTI International provides an overview of court navigator programs in the United States.
This publication by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Use Program (COSSUP) along with RTI International provides information about court navigators working with justice-involved individuals, highlighting examples of implementation in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. These innovative programs show that there are multiple ways to integrate navigation into a court system and that a wide variety of services are helpful in improving justice-involved individuals’ access to behavioral health care. Court navigation models have been implemented in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and illustrate different ways in which court navigators can be used to promote treatment for individuals in court settings. Court-based navigation is an increasingly popular model that may improve health and legal outcomes for individuals in a variety of Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Use Program (COSSUP) contexts. One statewide model is Project NORTH (Navigation, Outreach, Recovery, Treatment, and Hope), a recovery support navigator program established by the Massachusetts Trial Court in 2020 that currently provides navigators in 13 jurisdictions across the state and will soon be expanding to 3 more. Another court navigator program, in Rhode Island, supports courts in partnership with Project Weber/RENEW, a nonprofit organization that provides peer-led harm reduction and recovery support services. Navigation is a model that has been used in both health and legal settings to reduce barriers to treatment and significantly improve outcomes for individuals with mental health or substance use. Court-based navigation programs are gaining in popularity in jurisdictions across the United States, designed to link justice-involved individuals to mental health and substance use treatment and improve legal outcomes such as court attendance, adherence to conditions of pretrial and probation, and recidivism.