Spring is when the sunshine returns, the season of renewed hope and second chances. This spring, we want to share with you the story of a man who found hope during the darkest days of his life. His story speaks to the incredible power of faith and love – and to the fact that even when the world seems darkest, there is a next chapter to come.

Mentor, father, veteran. Son of a strong loving mother, youth basketball star and Nebraska State High School Powerlifting Champion. Bobby Smith has embodied many roles in his life and now, as a Mentor Coordinator for Total Action for Progress (TAP) in Roanoke, VA, he says the one that most defines him is ‘encourager of others’. But it is only in the past few years that Bobby has been free to share his gift of encouragement with the world. That’s because for twenty-two years prior, Bobby wasn’t free – he was serving time as a Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate.

Brad Bogue has a well-deserved reputation as a dynamic thinker and groundbreaking researcher in community corrections.  So when Brad turned his thoughts to the question of what makes a high-quality risk assessment interview, we were all ears and we bet you will be too.  Risk Assessments are a big part of setting the right path for our clients and working towards community safety. We at CorrectTech support this through our Assessment module.  Because your assessments are scored and part of every client’s electronic record, we create more time for practitioners to conduct the interview, interpret the results and create a risk reducing case plan using evidence-based practices.  We love that we support community corrections practitioners in having fewer scoring errors and less time focused on calculations – helping you focus on what matters most.

Fun with Data Management…. Really?

How many of you community corrections practitioners dread pulling together month end, quarter end or worse…year end program results? 

So, you are wondering why I would include “fun” in the same sentence as data management.  What’s more surprising is it’s me who is having fun with data management.  I am not a big data person.  Research, spreadsheets, data analysis, not my cup of tea. Include me in on a problem solving, “what works” or implementation discussion and I’ll let someone else do all the research. 

However, you’d be surprised how much better data can be when you don’t have to do any data entry to view basic and complex data analysis for your community corrections program operations.  

Check out an example of just one way we make data fun in our newest data management video “Fun with Data Management - Monitor History”.

What we learned about the Opioid Crisis at the 2017 ICCA Conference in Seattle

The Opposite of Addiction is not Sobriety.  This may have been the most powerful statement we heard at the ICCA conference where researchers and practitioners of many fields and backgrounds came together to learn, share information and knowledge; pushing each other to keep learning and doing more in our pursuit to do what works best.  Community Corrections has never been short of challenges and barriers.  It is encouraging to see dedicated professionals working hard to break through.

The conference encompassed workshops surrounding some of these challenges, including the opioid crisis, relapse prevention, housing and employment, and our jails being filled with a large amount of people with significant mental illness and trauma.  While there were many outstanding workshops at the Seattle conference, in this blog we will talk about discussions and community corrections solutions with relationship to the opioid crisis.

The Opioid Crisis

Who are some of the people who have been impacted directly by this crisis? 

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.