By: Chris Kamin, COO of equivant Supervision + Pretrial
Trying to keep track of client programming and supervision processes requires simultaneous awareness of a myriad of factors, actions, and clients. Deciding on the right case management solution for your agency is the most pivotal decision you will make—one that will affect clients, your community, and your agency’s effectiveness. You know you need a case management software solution that integrates all the vital information surrounding justice-involved individuals into a single, easy-to-use system. But what are the seven critical factors to consider before deciding on and implementing a solution?
Ask yourself if the solution you are considering has:
- Library of Validated Risk Need Assessments: Effective Supervision can be achieved at its highest level when you have a library of validated risk need assessments as the foundation. Achieving an appropriate level of supervision and creating individualized case plans that address criminogenic needs, stabilization factors, and strengths unique to each client require a trusted library of assessments at your fingertips.
- Integration Between Risk Needs Assessments and Case Plans: Be sure the solution you are considering allows for an automated integration between the results of your risk need assessment and case plan generation to improve agency efficiencies and save your staff time.
- Alternative Screenings: While broad-based assessments are foundational, agencies may require the use of additional offense-specific instruments for some subsets of their populations. Access to these tools, also known in the industry as “Alternative Screenings”, is imperative to devising a supervision strategy with the right Risk and Need focus areas.
- Practitioner Perspective: Ask if the case management solution you are considering has been vetted and designed by practitioners. Developers can make software do almost anything. If practitioners haven’t worked hand-in-hand with developers to build and regularly improve functionality, you won’t know if the solution can not only meet the demands of your workflow, but continue to support your best practice improvements until it is too late. At equivant Supervision, our team of practitioners work with our customers and developers to ensure our software makes sense to those who use it every day.
- Ability to Pull a Variety of Data: Without the ability to pull unique, ad hoc data, your agency won’t have the information you need to drive processes, operations, or measure effectiveness. Ensure the software you are considering allows you to pull data that helps you make decisions and inform policies and procedures.
- Integration Capabilities and is Ever-Evolving: Technology changes at the speed of light. That’s why it’s imperative the case management system you choose is flexible enough to easily integrate with all other operation critical solutions.It is also important to ensure your case management software will be continuously updated based on your needs and those of the industry.
- Client-centric Views: A holistic view of case planning—beyond court ordered conditions—is essential for client buy-in and collaboration. A view that allows for case and treatment plan reminders and details is essential for cooperation. When client collaboration and cooperation happens, community safety improves.
Case management software is the backbone of your organization—and deciding on a solution should be treated with the appropriate gravitas. The right software can help improve efficiency, reduce stress, mitigate risk, enable more effective case planning and management, and support all the clients on your caseloads. The wrong solution can make an already difficult job even more onerous. By carefully considering the seven pivotal factors we’ve addressed above, your agency can select a solution that takes the focus from cumbersome data entry to efficient and effective case management.
For more information about equivant Supervision’s Case Management and Risk Need solutions powered by the Northpointe Suite, or to schedule a demo, please click here.
