The Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) of the Organization of American States (OAS) will convene a regional training workshop in Barbados on Drug Treatment Court (DTC) Monitoring and Evaluation at The Crane Resort, in St. Philip on 3rd and 4th December, 2014.

This Workshop is a continuation of similar capacity building events held in Santiago de Chile, Chile and Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico. In addition to Barbados, participants will come from Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Belize. The countries invited to the workshop have already established Drug Treatment Courts, as is the case of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, or are in the process of establishing these Courts as is the situation of Barbados and Belize.

Since 2008, through various international initiatives, CICAD of the OAS has been working to promote drug treatment courts and similar court-supervised treatment alternatives to incarceration in the Americas. It is important, nevertheless, to ensure that these courts are functioning effectively and delivering the desired results and CICAD has sought to build capacity within the participating countries to carry out these functions.

The OAS has received funding from the Government of Canada and the United States of America to support this event. The Government of Canada has supported all the earlier efforts to establish Drug Treatment Courts through funding support, the provision of experts and exchange visits for participating countries.