Botetourt Drug Treatment Court is ready for 2022

Commonwealth’s Attorney John Alexander appeared befor the Board of Supervisors on Dec. 21 to update the Board on the empending Drug Treatment court in Botetourt county. The court is currently looking at candidates for our first ‘class’. Alexander said, “I reminded the board members that this program is not for violent offenders or people who pose a public safety risk. The program is for people who are involved with the criminal justice system because of their addiction. Giving them the tools to end the cycle and stay out of the system increases public safety and saves the county and state money.”

He offered up the following as well, “Thanks to Letitia Hawkins-Beatty, the Division Director for Adult and Family Services at Blue Ridge Behavioral Healthcare, we were approved at the state level for a program. Ms. Hawkins-Beatty did a tremendous amount of work to submit our application and get it approved.” Blue Ridge B ehavorial Healthcre secured funding to hire a Drug Court Coordinator for Botetourt/Craig Drug Treatment Court Program. The Coordinator is Karen Burroughs and BRBH also hired a Peer Recovery Specialist, Dakota Lewis.

Alexander said, “I was happy to be able to introduce those three folks from BRBH to the board and also to introduce the Probation Officer assigned to the program, Leigh Martin. Leigh is one of the best probation officers I have ever had the good fortune to work with and she will be an awesome part of the program. The Chief Probation Officer, Abby Fedor, has been very involved with the establishment of the program.”

Alexander continued, “I really wanted those four to be present yesterday because Ms. H-B made the program possible with her work on the approval process and Ms. Burroughs, Mr. Lewis and Ms. Martin will be doing the day to day work of helping our participants and also holding them accountable. Sometimes people in those positions can be taken for granted a bit and they perform jobs that are sometimes very difficult but absolutely essential to the success that we hope our participants will have in the program. I wanted to be sure to acknowledge that.”

A very important “side-effect’ of the establishment of this program is that BRBH will now have more resources available to Botetourt Craig residents. Ms. Burroughs and Mr. Lewis will have offices here in Fincastle, thanks to Chief Fedor, so there’s a welcome expansion of Blue Ridge’s footprint in Botetourt and more access for probationers and defendants to services.

The 2020 Drug Treatment Court Annual Summary (Virginia Supreme Court Office of the Executive Secretary) estimated a savings that year of nearly $12 million in Virginia.  The report says that each participant saves the Commonweath $19,234 as compared to traditional case processing.

–Cathy Benson with John Alexander. File photo Cathy Benson