This pamphlet provides information on the integration of Native Veterans Treatment Courts with Tribal Healing to Wellness Courts; it lists the 10 key components of TWHCs and VTCs and proposes models for the integration of the two types of courts.
This brief publication presents bullet-pointed lists and infographics on American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) veterans, noting that justice-involved veterans often have mental health and substance use concerns, and that, at a level of 19 percent, AI/AN have the highest rate of service of any demographic group of people. The document provides details on Tribal Healing to Wellness Courts (THWC) as well as Veterans’ Treatment Courts (VTC). It highlights the 10 key components of both courts, and presents the need for an integration of services provided by both VTC and THWC to best serve the AI/AN veteran population. It lists needs including coordinated and culturally-rooted services, veterans-specific or Native American-specific services, and others. The four proposed treatment models include focusing on healing rather than legal consequences, they take advantage of overlapping goals of VTC and THWC, and they emphasize the prioritization of holistic treatment, culture and tradition, and connecting veterans to services and emphasizing peer networks.