An Evaluation of Yukon's Community Wellness Court
Date
2011
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The Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family.
Abstract
The Yukon Community Wellness Court (CWC) is a therapeutic court model that is designed to work with offenders to address the underlying, root causes of their offending behaviour. The Court was established in May 2007 as a response to the recognition that a substantial proportion of offenders in the Yukon have underlying issues related to wellness such as alcohol and drug addictions, mental health problems, or Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). This report presents results of a comprehensive process and summative outcome evaluation analysis designed to monitor and test the effectiveness of the CWC. More specifically, the evaluation objectives were as follows: (1) to identify whether the Community Wellness Court and program continues to be implemented as planned; and (2) to determine the effectiveness of the Community Wellness Court process and program at achieving their objectives. Methodology A comprehensive process and summative outcome evaluation analysis was designed to monitor and test the effectiveness of the CWC. The process analysis examined how the CWC has been implemented and answered the question of whether the program was carried out as it was intended. The outcome analysis included a measurement of short and long-term outcomes to determine whether the program had its intended effect in achieving specific program objectives. The outcome analysis used a retrospective longitudinal pretest-posttest design with non-equivalent comparison groups (i.e., those who dropped out or were removed from the program without completing it). As the literature review indicates, evaluating problem-solving courts is difficult due to the inherent limitations including: the voluntary nature of the program; the complexity of the program (i.e., every client is subject to a unique combination of program activities); time in the program may vary considerably by individual clients; and the client group can be difficult due to their complex etiologies. This study was also affected by these limitations.
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Citation
Hornick, J.P, Kluz, K., Bertrand, L.D. (2011). An Evaluation of Yukon's Community Wellness Court PDF. (n.p.). Report prepared for Yukon Justice.