I am so thrilled that you were all here today.
This is, of course, one of the most joyful days
that we have in Drug Diversion Court.
Their journeys took real work and commitment
to get to this point,
and I hope you are all as proud of them as I am.
Hi, I'm Roxy.
I'm a lot of things.
Today I'm sober.
2-22-22.
So what is King County Drug Court?
It's a diversion program for people who have felonies.
And the program offers you housing,
counseling, mental health, pretty much anything
and everything that I could possibly think of in order
not to use drugs, they offered.
Drug Court has a lot of requirements
that are designed to help
participants be successful and stay on track.
Participants attend treatment in the community.
They do a minimum of two random urinalysis drug tests
every week.
Roxy is somebody who previously graduated Drug Court
who did come back a second time.
But we know that recovery is a process
and a lot of people have challenges
and bumps in the road.
When I was two weeks out
from graduating Drug Court the first time,
there was an incident at Mod Pizza at Seattle Center.
Where a gentleman murdered his child's mother.
And I happened to be the one to grab the guy with a knife.
And that was traumatizing.
COVID hit.
I went back to Seattle Center, where the trauma happened.
The next thing I knew, I had two weeks off of work
and no support, and I ended up back using.
I had to figure out what was the problem,
and what was the source of my use.
Why was I using?
What was causing me to continue to do that?
Being in survival mode most of my life.
Just wanting the basic things.
Just wanting to have my own space.
Wanting to - to have structure and safety.
You come from a place where I come from.
Yes. That’s right.
So in that sense, I know you can understand me.
It's the same language, right?
At 36-month follow up,
81% of our participants have no new felonies.
That's really significant because the average participant
comes into our program
with an average of about four prior felonies.
They have the recipe to make
drug users and people with addiction successful.
We are really proud of the work that we do,
and we're really proud of our participants.
It's like a second chance at life.