Wednesday, January 13, 2021

The Bureau of Justice Assistance has awarded an additional $800,000 in grant monies to fund the National Drug Court Resource Center, which has been housed in the University of North Carolina Wilmington Social Science and Applied Research Center since October 2019.

In 2019, UNCW received $1.6M from the U.S. Department of Justice to transition the National Drug Court Resource Center to North Carolina from Washington, D.C. The grant was awarded to sociology and criminology faculty members Kristen DeVall and Christina Lanier. With the additional funds, the current cooperative agreement has been extended through September 2022.

The NDCRC focuses on providing treatment court professionals with the resources to design and implement programs to align with best practice standards, expand and enhance court operations, as well as collect and analyze program data.

In 2020, the NDCRC website was redesigned to include an interactive map of treatment courts across the states and U.S. territories; a wealth of written and multi-media resources for various types of treatment courts relevant to practitioners, researchers and policymakers; a moderated discussion forum and calendar of professional development events for treatment court practitioners.

As part of an applied learning project, students from UNCW’s online M.A. in Integrated Marketing Communication program developed a social media plan and content calendar for the NDCRC.

“We look forward to continuing the work we're doing at present, as well as having the time and resources necessary to embark on new initiatives,” said DeVall. “We appreciate the support for this work and our vision for expanding the social science research portfolio on UNCW's campus.”

In addition, DeVall and Lanier said they have been able to publish monthly newsletters, offer webinars and produce podcasts.

-- Caroline Cropp

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