Grand Forks County Veterans Treatment Court (Northeast Central Judicial District)

Grand Forks County is the home of the Northeast Central Judicial District's Veterans Treatment Court, one of the two veterans treatment courts the Supreme Court's program page carries for North Dakota. The coordinator is Kim Higgs, telephone (701) 787-2760, email [email protected], at the district courthouse, 124 S 4th Street, Grand Forks. The district's policy and procedures manual, revision five dated July 3, 2026, governs. Eligibility under the manual: a current or former member of the armed forces including Guard and Reserves, eligible for VA benefits if a former member; "must be currently residing in the Grand Forks or Nelson County, or if in another county approval by the presiding judge"; determined to be high risk or high need on assessment tools such as the LSI-R or AUDIT, with moderate-high risk considered case by case; needing treatment for mental health or substance use; without other charges or holds that would interfere; and amenable to the program's rules. A veteran discharged under a bad-conduct or dishonorable discharge starts with the veterans service officer, and the county's own veterans service office sits on the VTC team alongside the VA's veteran justice outreach specialist. There is no right to participate - the court decides. A veteran charged in Nelson County or elsewhere in the district applies the same way; a veteran charged elsewhere in North Dakota can ask that court about referral, since the state's program description allows participation from judge-approved counties. The county's connection runs deeper than the courtroom: the manual has the district use a "Grand Forks County Treatment Programs Provider Contract Application" to qualify treatment placements, and the county's veterans service office is the entry point the manual names for participants with unfavorable discharges.