Goal 1 - Programs & Services
Goal 1: Programs and Services
Programs, services, and practices that encourage positive life changes and support community well-being.
Objectives
1. Implement protocols to ensure fidelity to evidence-based practices that promote client success and community safety.
2. Incorporate families and other social supports in clients’ care and treatment plans.
3. Ensure the effective use of high-quality risk reduction programs.
Performance measures
1. % of eligible clients who receive risk assessment ratings on time.
2. % of clients convicted of a new crime
Objective 1 Tasks:
| TASK | ACTIVITY | PLAN START | PLAN END | % COMPLETED | STATUS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Objective 1 | Implement protocols to ensure fidelity to evidence-based practices that promote client success and community safety. | 04/15/2023 | 12/31/2025 | ||
| Task 1 | Create a differential supervision plan utilizing risk levels to determine supervision level and case assignment. Create a differential supervision plan (e.g., following APPA caseload guidelines) utilizing risk levels to determine supervision level and case assignment. Ensure the plan is carefully constructed and comprehensive to limit disruption due to client case transfers and changing staff assignments. Adopt new policies prior to implementation that consider the needs of both clients and staff under the new model, such as assigning caseloads to staff, handling overrides, limiting case transfers and step downs, and ensuring client continuity of services and resources (e.g., when PRCS clients are moved to the FS unit). Consider eliminating low-value activities to create time for higher-value activities. | 04/15/2023 | 12/01/2024 |
20%
|
In Progress |
| Task 2 | Establish an EBP Steering Committee to provide broad oversight of agency EBP efforts. Establish an EBP Steering Committee made up of a cross-section of the agency, EBP champions, and key decision makers to plan, implement, and adjust the ongoing use of EBPs. Rotate and stagger the membership to increase agency buy-in. Consider contracting with an experienced consultant to organize and sequence the work and to help the committee build the capacity to independently sustain its EBP plan. Target the committee’s work as follows: 1) Utilize the EBP Organization Checklist to assess progress toward EBP. 2) Create and streamline EBP policies and procedures that support core correctional practices and case management standards (e.g., using assessments, writing case plans, applying rewards for prosocial behavior and behavioral responses to noncompliant behavior, addressing criminogenic needs during appointments, and applying interrater reliability processes to actuarial assessments) and accountability to these standards. 3) Develop and implement an EBP training plan that includes instruction, skill development, and boosters on core correctional practices and cognitive behavioral interventions. Evaluate and update the training plan annually. 4) Develop a trauma-informed training plan that includes: a) assessing trauma, effectively responding to client and victim trauma, and preventing further harm; and b) identifying vicarious trauma experiences by staff and self-care. 5) Align adult and juvenile behavioral matrices (rewards and incentives; responses to noncompliance) with research/evidence and uniformly apply the matrices across the agency. 6) Examine structured ways for supervisors to comfortably guide and coach staff toward core correctional practices (e.g., the Supervisor’s EBP BriefCASE). 7) Determine gaps in services that address criminogenic needs, responsivity needs, and victim needs by creating an inventory of all key programs utilized by the agency, and identify services in need of expansion. Identify areas across the agency requiring subject matter expertise (e.g., ORAS, OYAS, MI, case plans, firearms) and develop a policy that identifies who will fill the roles and how to ensure ongoing succession planning. Develop a step-by-step implementation model that utilizes implementation science to inform and guide the roll out of EBPs (e.g., pilot the practice first, explain the “why” to staff, identify a champion, etc.). | 04/15/2023 | 12/31/2025 |
40%
|
In Progress |
| Task 3 | Examine the use of the ORAS and OYAS risk and needs assessment tools. Examine the use of the ORAS and OYAS and create or update policies and procedures surrounding their use and how results are incorporated into case plans. | 01/15/2024 | 07/01/2024 |
10%
|
In Progress |
| Task 4 | Investigate available booking screening tools to replace the Detention Risk Assessment Instrument. | 02/01/2024 | 06/01/2024 | 0% | Not Started |
| Task 5 | Define core correctional practices and provide coaching to DPOs on these practices. Develop and sustain a long-term plan and policies to provide coaching in-house for DPOs on understanding and applying the core correctional practices. Initially, contract with an organization that specializes in coaching. Extend the preparation stage and engage a cross-section of staff in the development of the coaching plan by seeking their input. Put the plan in place slowly, in phases, allowing staff to get comfortable with the coaching processes. Ensure that coaching messaging highlights its intended purpose: to promote professional growth and improve services. | 02/01/2024 | 12/31/2024 | 0% | Not Started |
| Task 6 | Develop an EBP messaging plan. Develop an ongoing messaging plan (e.g., posters, videos, spotlighted topics, testimonials, skill of the month, email stamps) designed to create a robust organizational culture that supports evidence-based practices to reduce recidivism. Enter into a contract with an experienced consultant (e.g., under the proposed coaching contract) to construct the messaging plan and methods of delivery, with input from agency staff. | 02/01/2024 | 12/31/2025 | 0% | Not Started |
| Task 7 | Create a comprehensive, trauma-centered plan to address victim needs. Create a comprehensive, trauma-centered plan to address victim needs. The plan should include continued participation in the Family Justice Center, training for staff, and access to resources for officers and victims (e.g., services for human trafficking victims). | 01/01/2025 | 12/31/2025 | 0% | Not Started |
Objective 2 Tasks:
| TASK | ACTIVITY | PLAN START | PLAN END | % COMPLETED | STATUS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Objective 2 | Enhance agency capacity to analyze data, create dashboard, and report outcomes. | 10/01/2022 | 12/31/2025 | ||
| Task 1 | Issue an RFP/RFI for youth/parenting programs at the JF. Issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) or Request for Information (RFI) to enhance youth and parenting programming at the facility, especially programs that are evidence-informed. | 10/01/2022 | 03/01/2023 |
100%
|
Completed |
| Task 2 | Expand the use of youth advocates. Expand the use of youth advocates by revising the JF post orders or expanding their capacity to ensure that referrals for a youth advocate will be made by the JF DPO prior to the youth’s release. | 10/01/2022 | 03/01/2023 |
100%
|
Completed |
| Task 3 | Improve the use of assessment to improve youth care. Utilize in-house and partner assessments more effectively and develop a plan to communicate assessment results to JF and field staff. Provide JF and field DPO training on related assessments and practical ways to use results to bolster youth care. | 01/01/2023 | 12/31/2024 |
100%
|
Completed |
| Task 4 | Expand Child and Family Team meetings for all JF youth. Expand Child and Family Team (CFT) meetings to all youth at the Juvenile Facilities. The meeting structure should reflect how Placement and the Field Units are conducting CFT’s. | 01/01/2024 | 12/31/2024 |
100%
|
Completed |
| Task 5 | Effectively use incentives to improve client outcomes by seeking client input, developing policies and procedures on the use of incentives, and providing training. Expand and improve the agency’s current incentive policy by asking clients about their preferred incentives, customizing incentives, and including rewards that support clients’ families, such as gas cards, family meals, movie passes, and alternative supervision methods (e.g., virtual appointments). | 02/01/2024 | 12/31/2024 | 0% | Not Started |
| Task 6 | Provide support system training for probation staff. Provide practical, family engagement training for probation staff that promotes a clear agency policy regarding family engagement expectations, identifies helpful community resources, and deals with real, everyday issues encountered by clients, their families, and probation staff. Identify the desired training content before seeking a training provider. | 06/01/2024 | 12/31/2024 | 0% | Not Started |
| Task 7 | Pilot probation orientation sessions for family members. Provide orientation sessions for family members to impart consistent information on how the justice system works, probation agency expectations, and how they can best support a loved one under supervision. Implement the sessions on a pilot basis in one or two locations to learn and improve before expanding them to other sites. | 06/01/2024 | 12/31/2024 | 0% | Not Started |
| Task 8 | Issue an RFI for adult mentorship services for adults. Issue a Request for Information (RFI) to assess the viability and costs for a community-based organization to provide mentorship services that reflect the community demographics for adult clients (e.g., faith communities such as HopeBoyz/HopeGirlz, Resource Navigators, persons with lived experience). RFI respondents will be asked to describe proposed processes to maximize participation rates, including, for example, promoting the services and providing incentives. Explore expanding the contract with the current provider (Interface). | 06/01/2024 | 12/31/2024 | 0% | Not Started |
| Task 9 | Conduct multilingual parent satisfaction pre/post-surveys about their youth’s care. Develop and conduct multilingual pre- and post- family surveys for parents and social supports of youth to assess their level of satisfaction with services and whether they felt informed, supported, and involved in the youth’s care The survey should address potential constraints that could negatively impact the response rate, such as providing multiple ways to respond (mail, email, phone) and/or administering the survey when the family is conducting a visit or attending a probation appointment with their child. | 01/01/2025 | 07/01/2025 | 0% | Not Started |
| Task 10 | Research and potentially Implement mobile outreach efforts with VCBH, HSA, and Public Health to increase client awareness of and participation in community-based services. Develop and implement a plan in collaboration with VCBH and with HSA and Public Health to increase awareness and participation in available community-based services for adult clients’ families and others providing support to the client. The plan should explore specific strategies such as creating a mobile outreach effort to support client families. | 01/01/2025 | 12/31/2025 | 0% | Not Started |
Objective 3 Tasks:
| TASK | ACTIVITY | PLAN START | PLAN END | % COMPLETED | STATUS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Objective 3 | Ensure the effective use of high-quality risk reduction programs. | 07/01/2022 | 12/31/2024 | ||
| Task 1 | Identify a list of evidence-based/informed programs. Utilize clearinghouses that provide a list of services deemed to be effective based on the best-known research (such as Pew’s Results First Clearinghouse Database or the California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare) to identify evidence-based and evidence-informed programs. Putting one agency unit (e.g., the Research Unit) in charge of identifying evidence-based and evidence-informed programs would help ensure an objective review of such programs and a process for the agency to decide which programs to support. | 07/01/2022 | 12/31/2023 |
100%
|
Completed |
| Task 2 | Develop service delivery checklists for processing RFPs. Develop service delivery checklists to be used when processing RFPs and scopes of work. Checklist items should include priority features such as programming that targets criminogenic needs and the five priority areas of the Ventura County Juvenile Justice Plan (emotional and behavioral well-being, prevention and early intervention, a coordinated systems approach, family support, and prosocial and skill-building opportunities). Develop a policy and process to use the information gathered from the checklists to determine which interventions are recommended for use by agency staff and how identified gaps in services will be addressed. | 10/01/2023 | 06/01/2024 |
40%
|
In Progress |
| Task 3 | Explore contracting out for routine program fidelity assessments and issue an RFI/RFP if feasible. Establish a process to routinely conduct program fidelity assessments to ensure service providers deliver services informed by research. The process should include selecting a fidelity assessment tool, determining whether it should be administered in-house or through a contractor, prioritizing the programs to be assessed, and determining which unit (e.g., the Research Unit) would be responsible for coordinating the assessment process. In addition, the process should be collaborative—approaching community-based organizations (CBOs) as partners, providing information up front, training CBOs and nongovernment organizations about the process, and reassuring CBOs that the goal is to improve services. To ensure broad-based support, the agency should develop an implementation plan that includes garnering the Board of Supervisors’ support, acquiring a budget, developing a sustainability plan, and training agency staff. | 01/01/2024 | 12/31/2024 |
20%
|
In Progress |
