The unsung hero: the community corrections employee.
You put in long hours doing tough work. Not too many people would disagree with that. You work with offenders, a challenging population many people have given up on. A lot of people outside of the field envision dealing with offender resistance and potential danger as the most demanding part of the job, but most of the time that part isn’t the hardest part of our day.
As Coordinator of Staff Development, I develop trainings for both new and existing staff to help develop them in their positions. These trainings include topics such as developing positive relationships, establishing good boundaries, the spirit of motivational interviewing, leadership, as well as how to complete job duties in CorrectTech community corrections software. I enjoy this because I remain a part of what I consider to be extremely important work. I also take pleasure from training because I remain up to date and knowledgeable about current community based corrections staff responsibilities and needs. I work with supervisors to understand their current operations, stressors and motivators. I get to do on-going trainings with active staff and see how they are developing in their role.
All of this helps me in my “practitioner in residence” position as a Customer Development Specialist with CorrectTech. I am able to understand what people need and want out of a community corrections software system from my twelve years of direct experience and through my continued contact with the people still in the field. I couldn’t imagine a better way to show potential customers that we care and understand exactly how CorrectTech caters to their needs.
In my trainings with new staff, I often encounter both case management and security staff who have come to us from another community based corrections program such as a probation agency, halfway house, residential treatment program, you name it. I LOVE that the work I do with CorrectTech makes a difference in the day-to-day work of these unsung heroes when they tell me things like:
“CorrectTech is light years beyond the system my old program used, and they just upgraded,” said a new Correctional Technician who worked at a similar program in Houston, TX. He actually called his old co-workers to gloat.
“This is so user friendly,” said a case manager who compared it to two probation software programs she used. She told me how archaic both the private and county probation systems were and that you needed codes and cheat sheets just to use the system.
“It does that?!?” asked countless new staff from all types of backgrounds.
I really enjoyed my direct contact with clients as a case manager, case manager supervisor and even program coordinator, and sometimes miss feeling like I am directly helping them. Luckily my current positions make me feel like I am still part of that. I often say, “I’m helping the people who help the people; they need it too.”
If you ask these unsung heroes what the hardest part of their job is, they will likely answer the same way I would: Time. Finding the time needed to spend with the clients, to really give them the help they need instead of spending so much time filling out forms, making double entries and sifting through paperwork; that's the hardest part.
This Hard Knock Life blog series will continue over the next few months to give you the chance to look over my shoulder at the daily struggles I encounter through others, the problems being battled across the community corrections field and how CorrectTech’s community corrections software offers solutions.
Here’s a look at some of the topics I’ll be covering in upcoming weeks…
- Monthly Reviews: No Longer a Nightmare
- Manager Audits: Auditing Terrors
- The Frightening “Can you get that information for me real quick?” Request
- Dead Files: Making a graveyard out of my office and file room
- Tracking Clients in the Community: More difficult on the client or the staff?
- Client Services: BT’s, Pat’s UA’s & tracking
- Tracking & Accountability: IR’s and Positive Reinforcements
- Getting Information From Other Parts of the Agency for Your Case File
If you have any ideas, feel free to submit them at lsayler@correcttech.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog, if you haven’t already, so my blogs can be delivered straight to your inbox!
COMING SOON: Monthly Reviews: No Longer a Nightmare
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To request more information or schedule an online demonstration of our Community Corrections Software, click here. We offer integrated software and support services for Probation/Parole, Residential and Reentry programs. Our Program Foundation Platform and twelve robust modules were designed by community corrections professionals to guide organizations toward a powerful EBP implementation, relieve them of strenuous paperwork and manual processes, and enable them to focus on what matters - people!
