ONE OF THE NATION’S LEADING INNOVATORS IN DELIVERING EVIDENCE-BASED SOLUTIONS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND HUMAN SERVICES

TURNING LIVES
1 Yolo County, CA: EBP brings measureable, positive outcomes 2 King County, WA builds new system for Mental Health RX: the PRIME 4 Assessments.com selected to direct $1.2M statewide juvenile project in CA 4 News in Brief 5 Spotlight on ADC staff: Brian Richart is new ADC President 6 EBP – Recent Research: Exploring the Black Box of Community Supervision 8 Upcoming Events

Winter 2010 | QUArterLY neWSLetter CURRENT NEWS AND trenDS

AROUND supervision, and accurately and objectively identified higher risk juveniles who most need and can most benefit from rehabilitative treatment. Monthly statistics tell the story. In April 2007, the department was managing a caseload of 400 juveniles with a staff of 10 supervising field officers and an outpatient treatment budget of $120,000. Today, the total caseload is down to about 280, as the department has done a better job keeping very low risk youth out of the system altogether. Of those youth who do enter the system, some 150 low risk youth are supervised by 1 1/2 officers with diversion programs and minimal supervision, while the remaining officers are managing the 130 moderate to high risk juveniles (a 38% reduction in individual case load size) and providing individualized treatment through programs such as FFT (Functional Family Therapy) and T4C (Thinking for a Change)– cognitive behavioral programs that have shown through research to reduce a youth’s likelihood to reoffend. continued on page 8

Yolo County CA Probation Department Achieving Positive Outcomes with Assessments.com
With her County experiencing a dramatic 70% reduction in juvenile residential placement over a three-year period, the chief of Yolo County Probation was being questioned by other juvenile justice professionals who wanted to know how she had done it. “We just applied the available research the best we could.
I read The Psychology of Criminal Conduct, by Andrews and Bonta—a book I saw on the Assessments.com list of recommended reading on Evidence-Based Practices (EBP)—and followed it, as well as advice from other experts in the field,” said Chief Probation Officer Marjorie Rist. And it has worked. Since reorganizing the department to emphasize EBP, Yolo has seen statistical improvements for both individual programs and the department as a whole. Some programs have shown as much as a 60% improvement in program completion, a 39% decrease in re-arrest rate, and significant increases in the rate of satisfied victim restitution obligations. At a system level, Yolo County realized a 32% decrease in average daily detention population, and the average daily population for long-term detention commitments (to outsourced camp/ranch settings) decreased by more than 74%, translating to local cost-savings in excess of $350,000 per year. Yolo, a medium-sized, 200,000+ population county located adjacent to Sacramento, receives about 125 juvenile referrals each month from law enforcement and is committed to doing everything it can to help those youth turn their lives around. The steps Yolo has taken since contracting with Assessments.com late in 2006 to implement EBP have already made Yolo County a model within the state. Beginning with a vision to do what works, exercising steady leadership, and successfully encouraging staff and stakeholders to buy-in to the needed system changes, Chief Rist has managed to reduce the number of juveniles that enter the system. This was assisted by the implementation of a brief “detain or release” Detention Risk Assessment Instrument (DRAI) and a juvenile risk/ needs assessment (the PACT) to triage out the low-risk juveniles who are better served by diversion or minimal

2

KING COUNTY IMPLEMENTS PRIME WITH ASSESSMENTS.COM

King County Implements PRIME with Assessments.com
For this project, Assessments.com has developed a web-based behavioral health screening and referral system (the “Provider Referral Information Management Environment,” or PRIME) and is providing training, consultation, and ongoing technical support to the King County Mental Health, Chemical Abuse and Dependency Services Division.
The system uses smart technology and best practices to assist King County in meeting the goals it has set for itself: 1. Provide effective prevention and intervention strategies for those most at risk and most in need, in order to prevent or reduce more acute illnesses. 2. Reduce the frequency and severity of substance abuse and mental and emotional disorders in youth and adults. 3. Divert youth and adults with mental illness and chemical dependency from initial or further justice system involvement, if appropriate. To accomplish these goals, ADC is working with King County to: • Design planned points in the implementation process for system review to provide avenues for gathering needs for change to ensure ongoing improvement of the system.

• Address the issues and needs as described by the County and other potential users to enhance cooperation and collective • Set-up the system with the appropriate accounts. (In the case of King County, the effectiveness. system was initiated with the King County • Make communication between the County Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention; and Provider as streamlined as possible, the King County Mental Health, Chemical simplifying scheduling of a youth with Abuse and Dependency Services Division; a provider, eliminating unnecessary and and 20 additional users/providers/accounts/ unproductive voicemails, e-mails, faxes, locations.) texts, etc. • Train staff and other designated users on • Implement a web-based version of the the functions and features of the system. Global Appraisal of Individual Needs—Short Below are four screenshots depicting Screener (GAIN-SS) as a screening tool, PRIME features and functions. with automated scoring and reporting. • Share appropriate information about assessment-driven case plan goals and interventions, with the ability of County and providers to import and export their results from whatever tools and treatments each may be using, from assessments to medications prescribed to drug test results, etc.

www.assessments.com

WWW.ASSESSMENTS.COM

KING COUNTY IMPLEMENTS PRIME WITH ASSESMENTS.COM

3

The schematic to the right illustrates how the PRIME facilitates interactions between the host agency, King County, and the Providers. The system also provides a means for the County to measure the effectiveness of each Provider and Practionioner.

“This system will help out tremendously,” says King County’s Geoff Miller “For example, while a youth is sitting with his/her probation officer, the PO is able to lookup an open ‘seat’ at the provider’s facility and schedule the kid right then and there. The Provider is notified within seconds of this referral.”
ADC is contracted to deliver PRIME to King county by July 2010.

4

ASSESSMENTS.COM SELECED TO DIRECT $1.2 MILLION STATEWIDE JUVENILE PROJECT FOR CALIFORNIA

Assessments.com Selected to Direct $1.2 million Statewide Juvenile Project for California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Assessments.com has been awarded a $1.2 million contract by the Corrections Standards Authority, a division within CDCR, to assist county juvenile justice systems in developing and increasing their knowledge and use of evidence-based programs through a “Best Practices Approach Initiative.”
This three-year project, funded with a federal Juvenile Accountability Block Grant, was initiated in 2009 to provide a comprehensive approach to improving Evidence-Based Practices (EBP) in the California juvenile justice system. Partners in this project , along with Assessments. com, include the CSA, the California Administrative Office of the Courts , and Dr. Edward J. Latessa and the Center for Juvenile Justice Research at the University of Cincinnati. Also collaborating is Bobbie Huskey, M.S.W., president of Huskey & Associates. “I am pleased to be part of the state’s ongoing effort to improve the delivery of evidence-based programs and services,” said Mr. Hosman. “It is my hope that by the conclusion of this three-year project in 2012, that California will have become a model state for how to do EBP right. That means turning young lives around, reducing juvenile recidivism, increasing public safety and saving taxpayer dollars by being both tough and smart on crime.” This initiative has four primary objectives: 1. Determine the juvenile justice system’s state of progress in implementing EBP, develop web based resources to help the counties share information about best practices, and to track their advancements in achieving key EBP performance outcome measures. 2. Provide regional trainings statewide on EBP and best practices to Juvenile Probation Departments, judges and other stakeholders in the juvenile justice system. 3. Direct approximately three quarters of the funding to provide organizational development services to a minimum of three probation departments and their community stakeholders. This intensive on-the-ground technical assistance and training will support each probation department and judicial community selected in implementing the systems change needed to ensure a successful transition to an evidence-based approach. 4. Develop a plan to help juvenile probation in California sustain these advances.

News in Brief:

Washington State Department of Corrections Implements the STRONG Adult Risk/Needs Assessment Statewide The 2009 Washington State Legislature, needing to reduce the budget for corrections services, mandated WA DOC to use the Static Risk Assessment (SRA) throughout its statewide system, in order to reduce or eliminate supervision for most low-risk offenders without compromising public safety. Automated and implemented with the assistance of Assessments.com, this tool produces risk scores that differentiate offenders by low-risk, moderate-risk, and most importantly, high-risk for violence, high-risk for property, and high-risk for drugs. The SRA, along with the Offender Needs Assessment, comprise the STRONG. As a result of the 2009 law, the state is realizing more than $40 million dollars in cost savings annually.

Florida Department of Juvenile Justice Creates a New Residential Risk Tool with Assessments.com: the Residential PACT Three years after the successful statewide implementation, by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, of the PACT (Positive Achievement Change Tool), the FL DJJ Office of Residential Services, again with the collaboration of Assessments.com, has created a new risk/needs assessment tool – the Residential PACT, to help maintain continuum of care from probation to residential to aftercare. The R-PACT was created for residential settings as a tool to obtain specific, relevant information to help guide and develop residential programs and evidence-based intervention strategies designed to address each youth’s criminogenic needs, and to assist in determining when a youth is ready for release.

www.assessments.com

WWW.ASSESSMENTS.COM

SPOTLIGHT ON ADC STAFF

5

Spotlight on ADC Staff county as well as his leadership in the state of California served to advance the use of evidence-based practices in many jurisdictions. “Brian is an outstanding addition to the ADC team,” said Mr. Hosman. “He will be in charge of day-to-day operations which is his experiential strong suit. I expect him to apply his managerial skills to increase our organizational effectiveness and efficiency. His excellent understanding of how this industry works will be invaluable, but it is Brian’s dedication to family and community that will most benefit ADC for years to come.” As a chief, assistant chief and division chief for institutions, Mr. Richart worked toward the vision of full implementation of evidence-based practices, beginning with the introduction of a full range of juvenile and adult assessment tools to guide decision making at critical points in the criminal and juvenile justice systems. Mr. Richart expanded on that local effort and formulated a 16-county consortium of local probation departments, leading them all into the implementation of risk and needs assessments and creating a data transfer portal for each independent jurisdiction to share information through automation. His unique vision, strong leadership and consistent work ethic have garnered the recognition of his colleagues throughout the state as well as with local and state policy makers. In 1997 Mr. Richart began a career in community corrections as a line deputy in juvenile probation. He quickly worked his way through the ranks of his department and served that department in each available capacity. Mr. Richart has worked with juvenile and adult offenders, families, treatment providers, law enforcement agencies, adult and juvenile detention facilities, state legislators, legislative advocates and state corrections officials. He has served as a line deputy, line supervisor, mid-manager and executive manager. His work as a chief probation officer brought him the experience of managing a $15 million budget and supervising over 125 staff members within four divisions, including two detention facilities serving over 120 inmates. But the work he has done with individuals and families is where he found himself to be the most impactful. “My career thus far has given me the privilege of affecting, positively, criminal justice in California. I have joined Assessments.com because I recognized this company to be the leading force in their industry and I look forward to helping ADC create more change for good in the years ahead,” Mr. Richart said.

Brian Richart departed as Chief Probation Officer of Shasta County, CA to join Assessments.com as President Mr. Brian Richart has assumed the position of President of Assessments.com (ADC) effective January 4, 2010, and Sean Hosman, who previously held the title of President and Chief Executive Officer, will now focus his efforts, as CEO, more fully on research and the development of stronger evidence-based interventions as well as the overall growth of Assessments.com. Mr. Richart recently concluded a successful 13-year career in community corrections with the Shasta County, CA probation department where he served for the last three and one half years as a judicially appointed Chief Probation Officer. The leadership he demonstrated in his own

Tarrant County Juvenile Services is Turning Lives Around in Ft. Worth, Texas Assessments.com has been working with Tarrant County Juvenile Services since 2008 to assist that progressive Department meet its new EBP mission statement: “To drive, implement and sustain business practices that support and enhance positive interventions with clients and families through an evidence-based assessment process that identifies and targets criminogenic needs and protective factors.”

Assessments.com collaborates with Dr. Ed Latessa to automate new adult risk/needs Assessments.com has added a suite of new adult risk/needs assessments to its library as a result of a collaboration with Dr. Edward Latessa and the University of Cincinnati Center for Criminal Justice Research. Initially developed by Dr. Latessa as the Ohio Risk Assessment System (ORAS), this suite includes the new “detainor release” Pre-Trial Assessment Tool: the Community Supervision Screening Tool, the Community Supervision Tool, the Prison Intake Tool and the Reentry Tool.

Sean Hosman appointed to the ICCA Board of Directors Jane Browning, Executive Director of the International Community Corrections Assocation (ICCA), announced this December the appointment of Sean Hosman, CEO of Assessments.com, to the ICCA Board of Directors. The position Sean was appointed to is denoted as “At Large Representative 16 – Juvenile Justice” and his term extends through October, 2010.

6

ASSESSING THE RISK OF RECIDIVISM

EBP – Recent Research by James Bonta: Exploring the Black Box of Community Supervision
The following is a synopsis of the Exploring the Black Box of Community Supervision, article written by James Bonta which appeared in the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, Volume 47, Issue 3 July 2008 , pages 248 – 270. It provides an excellent evaluation of the effectiveness of community supervision in reducing recidivism.
The meta-analytic findings from over 60 audio taped interviews of probation officers and their offenders found a lack of adherence to some of the major Principles of Effective Interventions; mainly Risk, Need and Responsivity. The majority of contacts between the probation officer and the offender focused on their requirements for supervision and lacked the emphasis on the offenders’ Criminogenic Needs as defined by a risk/needs assessment. These interactions along with the probation officers’ non-use of motivational skills (e.g. positive reinforcement, supporting self-efficacy, pro-social modeling, etc.) showed a negative effect on assisting in an offender’s recidivism reduction. The study went on to say that the focus on Criminogenic Needs along with a building of a positive relationshipbased on seven indicators: 1)empathy, 2)openness, 3)warmth, 4)firmness, 5) prompting and encouragement, 6) enthusiasm, and 7)humor-showed the greatest effect on reducing recidivism. Overall, the study allowed insight into a century of belief on the effectiveness of community supervision and concluded with the necessary partnership between the focus of individualized criminogenic needs and the building of a positive relationship to act as effective agents of change in the lives of offenders. Table 1 Time Devoted to Discussing Conditions of Supervision 0 to 15 Minutes More than 15 Minutes % Recidivated 18.9% 42.3%

Table 1 explains the results of interactions between a probation officer and an offender where the topic of conversation was the offender’s conditions of supervision. The average interaction between a probation officer and an offender was 22 minutes. Given the length of time, along with the meta-analytic findings, the results showed a growth in recidivism for the majority of the offenders. Table 2 Time Devoted to Discussing a Criminogenic Need 0 to 19 Minutes 20 to 39 Minutes More than 40 Minutes % Recidivated 49% 36% 03%

Table 2 explains the results of interactions between a probation officer and an offender where the topic of conversation was one or two of an offender’s criminogenic needs as specified by a risk/needs assessment. When focusing on these topics, the meta-analytic findings showed a reduction of recidivism as the interaction continued.

States in which Assessments.com has or is implementing evidence-based solutions with clients.

www.assessments.com

WWW.ASSESSMENTS.COM

RECENT ASSESSMENTS.COM ACTIVITIES

7

Recent Assessments.com Activities:

Full staff: The staff of Assessments.com recently assembled at a company retreat to kick off the new year and the new decade. (Not present: Andy Fazzio)

The Executive Management Team of Assessments.com. Pictured from left to right are: Allison Russell, Director of Professional Services; Calvin Williams, Director of Sales and Marketing; Mark Winterman, director of technology; Sean Hosman, Chief Executive Officer; Brian Richart, President.

New EBP Implementations: 1. Northern California Probation Consortium (NCPC) – Implementing the Static Risk and Offender Needs Guide (STRONG) 2. Kern County, CA Adult Implementation of the STRONG. 3. Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, Residential Services contracted with ADC to provide Train-the-Trainer program, resulting in 32 trainers being certified across the state as Florida R-PACT trainers.

Staff Trainings: 1. C-PACT (Community – Positive Achievement Change Tool) Pre-Screen/ Booster Training for Johnson County, KS Juvenile 2. C-PACT Training for Idaho Probation Department Consortium (Blaine, Gooding, Jerome, Lincoln, Twin Falls) 3. R-PACT (Residential – Positive Achievement Change Tool) Training for Kern County Juvenile 4. R-PACT Booster/Case Plan Training for TYC (Texas Youth Commission) 5. Motivational Interviewing (MI) Training El Centro, CA 6. Motivational Interviewing (MI) Training in Sonoma County, CA

Conference Presentations: 1. Sean Hosman presented about the Best Practices Approach Initiative (BPAI) to the CA Probation Business Managers Association (PBMA) Conference in Santa Rosa 2. Sean Hosman, Terri Buckley of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice and Dianne Gadow of the Texas Youth Commission presented a workshop at the ACA (American Correctional Association) conference in Louisville, KY

About Assessments.com
Assessments.com has worked with over 75 adult and juvenile criminal justice departments and private providers across the United States to implement Evidence-Based Practices. ADC has provided validated risk/needs and other assessments, supervision and case plans, systems analysis, organizational development and staff training in EBP curricula (including Motivational Interviewing and cognitive-based programming), and software applications to automate processes and collect data for informationsharing, coordination of services, and outcome measurement. Sean Hosman, CEO, has a Juris Doctorate, Cum Laude, from the J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University, and is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT), a corporate Board member of the American Probation and Parole Association, and a member of the Board of Directors of the International Community Corrections Association.

8

YOLO COUNTY CA PROBATION DEPARTMENT ACHIEVING POSITIVE OUTCOMES WITH ASSESSMENTS.COM (continued) continued from page 1

According to Chief Rist, “I examined the results of the PACT assessments that had been completed and was able to determine what the highest aggregate criminogenic needs were for our population—relationships and attitudes/ behaviors—and I allocated our resources to treat the highest areas of broad-based need. In fact, we were able to work with our primary treatment provider, CommuniCare Health Centers (a non-profit community-based organization) to increase treatment resources for our high risk population by dismantling existing programs with dubious outcomes and reallocating those resources as well as utilizing some of the cost-savings realized through decreased residential and detention placements.” As a result, Yolo’s treatment budget has increased to more than $250,000, and the probation officers who once were discouraged by the system’s inability to provide needed services are now seeing the results of their hard work in the improving behavior of the youth under their supervision, in reduced number of youth being detained, increased payment of restitution, and in the number of youth who successfully complete probation programs and probation itself. Case-managing Probation Officers virtually never hear that there is not community program space available for the youth who need it, and waiting lists for outpatient treatment are a thing of the past.

Chief Rist has her sights set on future improvements as well. Her first priority in 2010 will be bringing the same EBP focus to adult probation, a process she has already begun with creation of an in-house adult I-Team to implement new business rules and work processes to more closely adhere to the proven probation practices described by researchers like Andrews and Bonta. Other activities will include Assessments. com training line staff in Motivational Interviewing techniques to enhance open and productive communication with offenders, and the comprehensive use of risk/need assessments, including the STRONG—the Static Risk Assessment and Offender Needs Guide, and the new

“detain-or-release” Pre-Trial Assessment developed this year by Dr. Edward Latessa and the University of Cincinnati Center for Criminal Justice Research. Still on the juvenile side, Chief Rist is adding a new, legislatively mandated assessment tool – the JSORRAT-II juvenile sex offender assessment, and is in the planning stages to conduct a recidivism study to provide the ultimate validation for her department’s efforts. Along the way, the chief also intends to refine her reporting system to include measurement of more performance indicators in order to continuously improve the integrity of her implementation, to gain new efficiencies, and to ensure on-going quality assurance and improvement.

Marjorie Rist, Chief Probation Officer at Yolo County, CA: “We reduced our total juvenile budget expenditures (detention, placement, and probation services) by 16%—including the implementation costs for all of our ADC products and a doubling of the community treatment budget.”

Upcoming Events
January 2010 January 22-27: American Correctional Association (ACA) 2010 Winter Conference in Tampa, Florida (ADC staff attending and exhibiting) January 31-February 3: American Probation and Parole Association (APPA) 2010 Winter Training Institute in Austin, Texas (ADC staff attending and exhibiting) February 2010 February 4: Judicial Officer Training in San Diego February 4: Quarterly Best Practices Approach Initiative (BPAI) I-Team Meeting in San Francisco February 9-11: California Association of Probation Services Administrators (CAPSA) 2010 Conference in Shell Beach, California (ADC hosting a reception and exhibiting) March 2010 March 14-17: National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) Conference on Juvenile and Family Law in Las Vegas, NV (ADC staff attending and exhibiting) March 22-24: International Community Corrections Association (ICCA) Community Corrections Public Policy Forum in Washington, DC (Sean Hosman attending as member of the ICCA Board of Directors)