The Sower Parable & Best Practices for EBP Implementation
There was once a community corrections agency that took great pride in the way its staff, particularly managers, were able to follow and adopt the latest scientific research. One interesting aspect of this research was labeled Evidence-based Practice (EBP). The prevailing understanding was that if EBP’s could be implemented with what some referred to as […]
Competencies for High-Quality Risk Assessment Interviews
I have been training on a wide variety (e.g., CMC; YLS-CMI; PACT; COMPAS; LSI-R; PCL; SDRRC; ROPE; LS-CMI, ASUS, ASUDS) of offender assessment tools for over 32 years. Over time, I have begun to wonder precisely what competencies make an officer particularly good at sizing someone up with an interview-style assessment.
Identifying the Adaptive Change Target
Have you ever struggled with the dilemma of encouraging high-risk clients to determine what is best for them, versus using your Risk-Need-Responsivity knowledge and tools to determine that for them? I know I have. If fact, in my entire career of 40 years, the topic of focusing on meaningful change targets has created more questions […]
Repurposing the EBP Coordinator Role
Prior to ‘What Works’ and soon afterwards EBPs there were few definitive signals about what direction a community corrections organization could or should take. For over 20 years now, however, our field has been faced with the challenge of implementing select EBP to a level of fidelity or competency never previously specified. And though the […]
Simplified Targets for Reducing Recidivism
Thanks to the ground-breaking work of researchers like Ted Palmer, Paul Gendreau, Don Andrews and Jim Bonta, the field of corrections has been engaged in conversations and efforts to realign around the Risk, Need and Responsivity (RNR) principles for almost three decades. RNR forms the foundation for Evidence-Based Practices in case classification world-wide today, as […]
Role Clarification: Why Fuss Over It?
Since Dowden & Andrews’ 2004 meta-analysis on effective staff practices, the corrections field has been on notice that staff approaches that are fair, firm and transparent get better outcome results.
Try “Implegration”: Tool #6
As staff develop their individual expertise with new skills, and also expertise on what works and doesn’t work for skill development, they become a rich source for ideas around creating engaging ways for supporting, mastering and integrating EBP’s into practice
Communities of Practice: Tool #5
In this edition, we take the next step into Communities of Practice – the first “tool for implementation” that engages the power of group learning rather than simple individual feedback.
Decision Support Databases: Tool #4
In this edition, we take the next step into decision support databases, which use the accumulated performance assessment data to discern when individuals achieve competency or partial competency and overall training goals have been met, especially when sustainability is of significant interest.
Performance Assessment: Tool #3
Performance Assessment, aka “How are we doing with these skills, anyway?”