New DWI Court Teams Receive Training

For the third year in a row, Texas was selected as a site by NHTSA to be the beneficiary of training designed for new DWI court teams.  This training, designed by the National Drug Court Institute specifically for DWI courts, was based on the longer drug court training course which has been offered by NDCI for years.  In 2007, NHTSA budgeted funding for 30 judicial teams to be trained nationwide.  Five of those teams selected to receive the training were in Texas, and the training was conducted in Austin, July 10-13.  The five teams that received training were from Brownwood, Laredo, Waco, and Austin (two teams).  Most of the teams involved in the training plan to have their new DWI courts up and running in the fall this year.  For the first time this year, the DWI court training sessions were recorded by a videographer so that the DWI court training can be more easily replicated by NDCI on a national level, and can also be made available for other Texas judges who want to complete the training or have their staff members receive additional training.  The expense of the participants attending the training, as well as the cost of the video production was paid for by a grant from TxDOT.