By: Tina Gensler, equivant Supervision and Pretrial Professional Services Manager
While April is officially “Second Chance Month,” for those of us in the supervision space, Second Chance Month is every month of the year. We believe in second chances, and we believe in the rehabilitative process for our clients. But rehabilitation doesn’t happen the same way for every client. And while many factors come together to influence rehabilitative success, superior, comprehensive case management and client investment top the list. As a former Case Manager with more than two decades of experience, I understand the factors that can powerfully impact comprehensive case management and resulting client investment. Below are the top four.
- ASSESS: When practitioners get a case, they need to learn as much about the client as possible. This means receiving access to information all in one place and to a variety of risk, needs, and secondary assessments to fully understand the client. This includes learning their key drivers of criminality and understanding the trends and patterns within their behaviors so that you can positively impact their future behavior using your comprehensive knowledge base.
- PERSONALIZE: Assessments only tell part of the story. Great case managers will truly get to know their clients through visits, phone calls, community and home visits, and regular communication with their program and treatment contacts. This is when you can truly get to learn about the client’s personal investment in their rehabilitation and understand which stability factors may be influencing their ability to commit to the plan. Through these conversations, you can truly customize a plan based on what the client wants to get out of their supervision.
- TRACK: Assessments at key intervals are essential for effective tracking of progress and to develop the right case plan modifications. equivant Supervision’s case planning and case management software solutions, delivered through the Northpointe Suite, provide different ways to track progress at a variety of intervals so you know how to accurately adjust supervision levels, as well as modifications to any conditions or rules of supervision. Tracking also helps with client buy-in in the rehabilitative process because they can clearly see progress or backslides objectively.
- LEVERAGE TECHNOLOGY: You cannot execute on any of the above three steps effectively if you don’t have the right technology. Without access to a bevy of risk/need and secondary assessments, you’ll miss core pieces of information and trends that complete the entirety of who your client is. Without a solution that allows access to all the information about a client in one place, you’ll lose precious time gathering data. Without a reliable system that helps you schedule meetings and check-ins, provides automated reminders, and allows you to confidentially communicate with third-party treatment providers, you won’t be able to effectively personalize the rehabilitative journey. Finally, without access to a software solution that supports assessment at regular intervals, you won’t be able to track progress or impactfully alter the case plan. Without equivant Supervision’s case planning and case management software solutions, offered through the Northpointe Suite, case managers cannot be as effective as our clients and communities need and deserve.
Each case and each client is different, but they all have something in common; the safety of our communities and the second chances of these individuals depend on the effectiveness of their supervision. With ever-increasing caseloads and priorities, case managers need software solutions to help them accurately assess clients, personalize their case plan and interactions, and track their rehabilitative journey. Second chances and safer communities are made possible by committed case managers, supervision professionals, and ever-evolving technologies. Want to talk more about these software solutions? Schedule a demo today.
