After more than 25 years in corrections leading teams through change, I can tell you – I’m sick and tired of struggling with it! And I know I’m not alone. I consult with agencies every day that are struggling through organizational change.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

There are two strategies that when used properly help us get out ahead of change and influence it in a way that makes leading through change much easier - even as much as 10 times easier!

“How?!” You say.

“Lay it on me!”

It’s summer time! 

We are less than six weeks in to the Game of Thrones waiting game and counting down the days until (or fondly remembering) our summer vacations.

To help get out of the summer office space slump, we pulled together a few easy tips on staying productive in your community corrections office.

We know it can be difficult to stay focused on your clients and their treatment (much less all of the paperwork that comes along with them) when you’d rather be at the pool.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t make the most of the time you have this summer with your clients.

1. Get active! Take your sessions outside your office. Why keep everyone cooped up inside when you can take your sessions and programs outside? Take a walk around the office or use the stairs instead of the elevator. Here are some other ideas for moving around the office from the American Heart Association. 

2. Help your clients plan something they can look forward to. 

As part of a mission to improve success rates and decrease technical violations and escapes, Time to Change Community Corrections (TTC) has turned its treatment team meetings into training and growth development meetings under the guidance of Evan Crist, Psy.D., founder of CorrectTech. Dr. Crist is leading a shift in culture and organizational change by educating his staff members using TTC’s own data to help equip them on this mission.

Want to know how this recent initiative started? Check out Adventures in Implementation.

I attend these meetings and am happy to be included in this exciting culture change! My goal, as CorrectTech’s customer development specialist, is to reinforce TTC’s goals for using agency data to drive decision-making in my individual community corrections staff coachings and group trainings.

I am thrilled to see the data management system in CorrectTech’s case management software being put to use in this exciting journey!

A case manager supervisor was recently assigned two projects that incorporate collecting data out of CorrectTech.

Assignment 1: What are the success rates for clients with a specific drug of choice?

My 15-year-old daughter has her driver’s permit. She is attentive and cautious, but sometimes being in the car with a learning driver is a bit harrowing. She is slowly becoming more comfortable and confident but still needs guidance at times and frequent feedback for assurance. She will have her license soon, but, for now, this learners’ permit experience serves a great transition from being an unlicensed driver who still needs Dad to play taxi driver to a licensed driver who believes she needs nothing from no one.

Learning the necessary skills to earn that freedom is not without stress for driver and passenger, but imagining what the roads would be like without such a transition period is certainly far more frightening.

Transition Clients Back into the Community

Thoughtful planning, basic skills training and the freedom to make some mistakes are vital aspects of a good transition for community corrections offenders too. In fact, it can be argued that the lack of such a process is largely to blame for our unacceptably high recidivism rate.

1. Ohio is working hard to decrease the prison population through more effective community and re-entry methods.

2. Losing a mother to crack, being on your own after numerous foster home and group home placements, and pleading guilty to and serving time on a felony you didn’t commit didn’t hold Rayshawn Wilson back from being successful and inspiring. His battle is fierce and he sites “purpose” as the secret ingredient to driving motivation and how this and attitude, thoughts and belief and believing in something greater than themselves are key factors he has noted in those who bring desistance from crime for many who don’t go back to crime (like himself).
Check out Rayshawn Wilson’s new book, LionHeart: Coming From Where I’m From.

3. We met community corrections workers that need an automated system that will create their reports and documents for them, scores their assessments for them, write up incidents for them, track dosage and structured time for them… so they can have more time to do their important client work that they are clearly passionate about doing!