Addiction is a hard thing to face, but it’s a lot easier when the right people are standing beside you and guiding you toward recovery. If you’re in Grant County and you get involved in Community Court due to an addiction problem, whether that’s alcohol or fentanyl, several people will be there to walk the path with you.

One of those people is Alma Farias, a community court specialist who works with defendants to walk them through the process of recovery through accountability, coaching and connecting nonviolent offenders with open criminal cases with the resources they need to get their lives back on track. 

“I try to do kind of a needs assessment to see what their most basic need is that they don’t have,” Farias told Basin Business Journal sister publication the Columbia Basin Herald in April. 

From that assessment, Farias connects each of her clients to a variety of things to get their lives back on track. Some people need housing. Others need mental health assistance. All of them need some manner of addiction recovery help to get clean and stay that way. 

“I like to go with them to that first meeting, so that the other person meets me and then they know we’re kind of building a team in the community for (my client),” Farias said. 

Community Court Judge Brian Gwinn, who sits on the community court bench, said Farias has essentially written the book on how the program will work from a client services perspective in Grant County. 

Over time, the clients Farias has worked with and are seeing success in the program become mentors for those just entering the community court. As they move forward, successful completion of the program means their charges are dropped and they can move on with their lives – clean and crime-free. That’s fewer people in jail, more people in the workforce and a rehabilitated community member that can be a positive influence in the community.