NORWICH – After approximately 15 years of serving individuals in recovery throughout Chenango County, the county’s treatment court coordinator is officially retiring.

Chenango County’s Treatment Court Coordinator Jim Everard said he has been involved with treatment court since its creation on February 1, 2004.

“Since its creation, we’ve had exactly 400 people come through our program,” said Everard on Friday.

He said Chenango County’s Treatment Count program began under judge Howard Sullivan, and the county put together a team.

“We put a team together, a rather hodge-podge team, and shuffled off to Buffalo for a week long training session,” said Everard. “Then I came back to a desk, but that was about it.”

He said after sitting down with the team and creating a policy and procedure manual, they waited about two months until they received their first participant.

“Treatment courts were originally developed to stop the revolving door of criminal activity and treatment,” said Everard. “For years we would put people in treatment for short periods of time, four or five weeks at most, and then they would get out and the criminal activity wouldn’t stop.”

According to Everard, the treatment court program was developed to keep someone in treatment while being judicially monitored for a minimum of one year.

“We know that the longer you keep someone in a treatment program and tag on judicial oversight, the higher the chance that the individual wouldn’t commit another crime,” said Everard. “Most addicts are good people, but when they get into drugs or drinking, they begin committing crimes.”

He said that helping people overcome their addictions and remain in a state of recovery has made his time in the treatment court program incredibly rewarding, but now he’s handing the baton to another person.

Karen Caminiti, the new treatment court coordinator has a history of working in drug treatment courts leading back to 2009, and said her natural inclination towards helping people guided her to this position.

“I worked under a grant as a judicial diversion case manager in the drug courts back in 2009,” said Caminiti. “I floated around from Broome County’s Drug Court, for two days of the week, I was in Chemung County for two days, I was in Cortland for a day, and I did that for about two-and-a-half years until the grant ended.”

She said she’s worked in other various places after that, but has pretty much always worked with the same population.

“I’ve worked in halfway houses, outpatient clinics, and I ran a residential re-entry center with a contract through the bureau of prisons,” said Caminiti. “I’ve always enjoyed helping people, and I like the fact that while working on a treatment court, we have the gavel behind us.”

She said treatment court is a combination of treatment with punitive measures in place to encourage individuals to stay on the right path.

“Treatment court is a nice mixture of both, that includes a panel of people who analyze every aspect of a person’s life and look at their strengths and challenges,” said Caminiti. “A lot of people will come out of prison and can’t get a job, which makes it difficult for them to live a clean life.”

She said treatment court allows those individuals to get the help they need, if they’re willing to accept it, and she looks forward to helping as many people get to recovery as she can.