The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) is awarding $100,000 in one-time grants and scholarships for court interpreter programs. This funding is made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
The AOC will be awarding $50,000 in grants to pay for the costs of credentialed interpreters in order of protection hearings. These grants are available to any courts that hear petitions for orders of protection. The application deadline is September 15, 2009.
Additionally, the AOC is offering $50,000 in scholarships to offset the costs of the court interpreter credentialing process. Bilingual individuals who are interested in becoming a court interpreter are encouraged to apply. Applications will be accepted through December 31, 2010. Below are links to funding notice for each program and applications in PDF and MS Word (DOC) formats.
Court Interpreter Credentialing Scholarships
Notice of Funding (PDF)
Application Form (PDF) - (click here for MS Word form)
Court Interpreters for Order of Protection Hearings
Notice of Funding (PDF)
Application Form (PDF) - (click here for MS Word form)
The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) has awarded more than $208,000 to 12 service providers that establish programs to support and facilitate non-custodial parents’ access to and visitation with their children.
These grants are made possible through a federal Access and Visitation Grant received from the Tennessee Department of Human Services, child support division. The AOC is a sub-recipient of this federal grant.
Through the use of Access and Visitation funding, the State of Tennessee has addressed the needs of divorced, unwed, and never married parents and has focused on self represented litigant services to help them resolve parenting issues. This emphasis on the self-represented litigant is part of the Tennessee Supreme Court’s access to justice initiative that started with its establishment of a workgroup that studied self represented litigant issues which grew into a Self Represented Litigant Task Force that grew into the Access to Justice Commission.
For 2009-2010, grants have been awarded to the following organizations:
Community Health of East Tennessee, Campbell County
Community Legal Center, Shelby County
Community Mediation Services, Anderson County
Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County, Shelby County
Legal Aid of East Tennessee
Oasis Center, Davidson County
Southeast Tennessee Legal Services, Hamilton & Meigs counties
The Mediation Center, Maury County
United Responsible Fathers of America, Rutherford County
The Administrative Office of the Courts has awarded $50,000 in grants to six Victim Offender Reconciliation Program (VORP) centers in Tennessee. The grants were made possible due through funds received from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) through the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Competitive Grant Program.
These grant funds are to be used for programs outside the statutory mandate such as peer mediation at local schools, community education, conflict resolution training for at-risk youth and adults, and skills education classes including but not limited to anger management. The goal of these programs is to divert and prevent at-risk juveniles and adults from entering into the criminal justice system, thereby reducing the amount of criminal cases in the system and making the system more efficient.
The following agencies have been selected to receive funding from the ARRA Byrne VORP grant:
Community Health of East Tennessee |
$7,500 |
|---|---|
Mediation Service of Putnam County |
$7,500 |
Memphis Leadership Foundation/MARRS |
$7,500 |
Mid South Mediation Services |
$9,500 |
Nashville Conflict Resolution Center |
$8,500 |
Sumner Mediation Services |
$9,500 |
Under a grant from the State Justice Institute (SJI-01-N-210-C03-1), the National Center for State Courts Institute for Court Management, in collaboration with the American Judges Association, is pleased to provide judges access to an online course on Substance Abuse.
This course explores the nature of alcohol and other drug abuse as well as the dynamics of recovery in the court context. It is intended as a primer for judges who handle all types of case. Its goal is to encourage judges in all types of courts to share current information and work with experts in other disciplines to develop new systematic approaches to address this large and challenging court population. The course was created using "WebCT" instructional software and requires users to enroll prior to accessing course content and materials. The enrollment process requires participants to provide a full name, email address and phone number.
ICM is also asking participants to identify their court organization and position/title for course demographic purposes. Upon enrollment in the course participants are able to navigate the course at their own pace in an individualized setting in a secured environment.
To access the course please go to the National Center for State Courts
Institute for Court Management "Free Resources" website.
Select
the Judicial Education on Substance Abuse course. You will be
directed to an enrollment page where you will be required to complete
the registration form and click on the submit button once completed.
An email response will be returned to you within 48 hours with
a user name and password. Follow the enrollment instructions to
access the course.
If you are having problems accessing the registration page or the WebCT Substance Abuse course please email elearning@ncsc.dni.us.
This Educational Curriculum was prepared with the support of a grant from the State Justice Institute (SJI-01-N-063). Points of view expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the State Justice Institute.