The Challenge
The Drug Court is a division of the Magistrates Court of Victoria (MCV) that has the power to administer Drug and Alcohol Treatment Orders (DATO). Established on the principles of therapeutic jurisprudence, Drug Court is an alternative sentencing option for an accused with a history of entrenched offending and drug and/or alcohol use. The first MCV Drug Court commenced operations in Dandenong in 2002, followed by the Melbourne expansion in 2017 and the regional sites –Shepparton and Ballarat in 2022.
In 2021, a process review of the Melbourne Drug Court (MDC) was undertaken by Court Services Victoria (CSV) with support from Department of Health (DoH). The primary recommendation was for parties to engage in consultation and a co-design process with service system stakeholders to develop a well-functioning, participant-centred and fiscally viable Alcohol and Other Drugs (AOD) service.
Key drivers for this project included a desire to improve AOD treatment services by closely examining and strengthening onsite delivery, the opportunity to scale a successful model across other sites, and growing demand within the criminal justice and forensic AOD systems. This demand is driven by increasingly complex client needs—particularly within the DC and MDC cohorts—highlighting the need for a responsive, evidence-informed approach
Our Response
ThinkPlaceX carried out desktop research which was captured in Literature report. This allowed the team to fully understand how the system works, what the current complexities within the system look like and understand the barriers and limitations surrounding the current participant experience.
ThinkPlaceX conducted 2 Roundtable engagements with lived experience participants and frontline staff (MCV Drug Court multidisciplinary team members) as well as shadowed the participants journey with their advisory team and in court review hearings to understand the participant journey through the treatment process and to understand pain points and successes from the perspective of both participants and frontline staff. ThinkPlaceX coordinated for a live scribe to digitally capture the lived experience roundtable stories and produce 3 visual outputs which represent the DATO journey. ThinkPlaceX then conducted a full day co-design workshop to design and refine the new AOD service with key stakeholders and bring together diverse voices to strengthen the existing model and integrate improvements into the AOD service. ThinkPlaceX delivered project findings in a comprehensive insights report and accompanying toolkit of visual artifacts that had been created throughout our project.
The Impact
This project enabled the participants voice to be heard and guide the improvements for the order. Involving the participants voice created ensured that the future of the order will include the right opportunities for future participants to not only successfully complete the treatment order but also to flourish as community members beyond their time on the order and reduce recidivism
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