Our reflections of APPA 2017 from the inside, outside and beyond.

Last month we found ourselves positioned in a good space as we went about setting up our booth at APPA’s 42nd Annual Training Institute, held this year in a particularly exciting place, New York City. We were positioned on the Expo floor at a busy nexus of booths and buffet tables, and our team reconnected with and met practitioners from all over the country. Each brought their knowledge, progressive nature and passion for EBP. We attended several interesting sessions as well, which highlighted important challenges facing the corrections industry.

The Big Apple proved the perfect backdrop for APPA, and we explored some of the city’s unique places. Following are a few highlights from inside the conference, activities outside it, and challenges going forward.

Criminal Justice Reform is on the Move and 9 other things I learned at the Oregon Justice Reinvestment Summit:

one: Although the event was in Oregon, speakers from around the country made it clear that criminal justice reform is on the rise nationwide.

two: Pretrial research has uncovered that being locked up for three or more days while awaiting a hearing can cause very serious unintended repercussions for that individual, including a 4% increased risk that the person will recidivate.

three: Oregon was recently selected as one of three states to participate in the National Criminal Justice Reform Project with a focus on pretrial and a mission to reform using data driven, evidence based practices.

four: As shared in the Justice Policy Institute Report, “The vaguely understood pretrial process of bail costs the taxpayers of the United States billions of dollars and infringes on the liberty and rights of millions of Americans each year.”

It’s summer time! 

We are less than six weeks in to the Game of Thrones waiting game and counting down the days until (or fondly remembering) our summer vacations.

To help get out of the summer office space slump, we pulled together a few easy tips on staying productive in your community corrections office.

We know it can be difficult to stay focused on your clients and their treatment (much less all of the paperwork that comes along with them) when you’d rather be at the pool.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t make the most of the time you have this summer with your clients.

1. Get active! Take your sessions outside your office. Why keep everyone cooped up inside when you can take your sessions and programs outside? Take a walk around the office or use the stairs instead of the elevator. Here are some other ideas for moving around the office from the American Heart Association. 

2. Help your clients plan something they can look forward to. 

As part of a mission to improve success rates and decrease technical violations and escapes, Time to Change Community Corrections (TTC) has turned its treatment team meetings into training and growth development meetings under the guidance of Evan Crist, Psy.D., founder of CorrectTech. Dr. Crist is leading a shift in culture and organizational change by educating his staff members using TTC’s own data to help equip them on this mission.

Want to know how this recent initiative started? Check out Adventures in Implementation.

I attend these meetings and am happy to be included in this exciting culture change! My goal, as CorrectTech’s customer development specialist, is to reinforce TTC’s goals for using agency data to drive decision-making in my individual community corrections staff coachings and group trainings.

I am thrilled to see the data management system in CorrectTech’s case management software being put to use in this exciting journey!

A case manager supervisor was recently assigned two projects that incorporate collecting data out of CorrectTech.

Assignment 1: What are the success rates for clients with a specific drug of choice?

1. Ohio is working hard to decrease the prison population through more effective community and re-entry methods.

2. Losing a mother to crack, being on your own after numerous foster home and group home placements, and pleading guilty to and serving time on a felony you didn’t commit didn’t hold Rayshawn Wilson back from being successful and inspiring. His battle is fierce and he sites “purpose” as the secret ingredient to driving motivation and how this and attitude, thoughts and belief and believing in something greater than themselves are key factors he has noted in those who bring desistance from crime for many who don’t go back to crime (like himself).
Check out Rayshawn Wilson’s new book, LionHeart: Coming From Where I’m From.

3. We met community corrections workers that need an automated system that will create their reports and documents for them, scores their assessments for them, write up incidents for them, track dosage and structured time for them… so they can have more time to do their important client work that they are clearly passionate about doing!