The Frightening “Can You Get Me That Information Real Quick” Request

Have you ever felt like someone kicked the wind out of you with a request for information? You were starting to feel some momentum on your daily routines and then, BAM, someone creates a windstorm with what they think is a simple request. That’s how I felt as a case manager AND administrator before we had CorrectTech’s case management software system that made these interruptions of my daily routine easy to respond to quickly so I could get back to my work with our clients.

I’ve written about the unsung hero’s hectic job before and the frequent interruptions are just one area that contributes to our challenges. Organization and easy tracking are crucial to keeping our duties manageable. No matter what job we have or task we are working to accomplish in a community corrections agency, someone is going to interrupt our flow. Don’t worry; our needs have not been ignored.

Problem Solved!

Community Corrections Manager is a Hard Job

You are responsible for the things you do, don’t do and should do. You are also responsible for the results and decisions of your team. You have to answer to a variety of stakeholders. After all the meetings are done and requests for information are made, it is hard to find time to connect with your staff or focus on results. If you had a clone of yourself to sit in on all those meetings, you could save a lot of time. I can’t offer you that, but I can show you the next best thing out there.

CorrectTech community corrections software offers managers all the information they need at their fingertips. Among the many benefits for the manager, every part of the client file is accessible and the results are all stored in our data management system.

Check out our newest animated video “Manage People, Not Data” for some specific highlights.
This is part 2 in a 3 part series on our powerful data management system – make sure you watch them all!

Reporting Nightmares No More

"You want to report on all that hard work you do with your client, right?" Words our unsung hero, the case manager, loathes hearing. Of course we know reports are important. Of course we know that done correctly, reports are vital to our clients’ progress and our success as case managers. But it’s hard to be convinced that we should take joy in completing intake, monthly or termination reports.

Reporting on a client’s progress (or lack thereof) is very important, yet community corrections case managers continually struggle with keeping up with paperwork type responsibilities, deadlines and having enough time to meet with clients in a quality fashion.

Even the best case managers aren’t able to spend the time they should with their clients because they must also keep up with compliance and paperwork requirements. You know what it is like to have to locate everything you, and others, have already done and put it into a report… every time a client intakes... every month… every incident… all of the treatment… all of the drug test outcomes… and of course every time a client terminates… and usually all of the above.

Having the Right Ingredients

Baking soda or baking powder? Make sure you check your recipe card before you go dumping in the wrong one. My husband was so kind to make me his first batch of chocolate chip cookies one evening… while I was pregnant and it was urgent that I had some. Let’s just say, he used the wrong one and even though they didn’t taste quite right, I still ate several. What does this have to do with community based corrections you ask?

It’s also important to have all of your key ingredients when completing a case plan with your client. Almost universally in the community based corrections world, there is a risk assessment used to help case managers assess the top criminogenic (crime creating) needs. Setting goals in your case plan to address these high-risk areas increases the chance of reducing this risk. Criminogenic needs and goals are usually required ingredients in a case plan.

The unsung hero: the community corrections employee.