A critical step in preparing for implementation is identifying which community service providers the probation agency wants to partner with to deliver dosage-eligible programming. To count as dosage, community-based programs must target one or more of the five most influential criminogenic needs using cognitive behavioral interventions demonstrated by the research to reduce recidivism. The five most influential criminogenic needs are:
- Antisocial cognition
- Antisocial personality
- Antisocial associates
- Family/marital relationship challenges or stressors
- Substance abuse
This section describes the scope of work for establishing a dosage probation partnership with providers and offers guidance in identifying your community service provider partners. The information in this section builds on your probation agency’s community service provider activities during the readiness assessment, specifically to assess service providers' capacity to deliver evidence-based dosage hours.
TO DO
- Familiarize yourself with the scope of work for partnering with community service providers
- Establish a community service provider subcommittee
- Gather information from and continue educating community service providers
- Gather risk/needs assessment data
- Determine which providers are best suited to partner with your probation agency
- Get ready for the next steps
What Does "Partnership" with Community Service Providers Mean?
Under the dosage probation model, community service providers must deliver quality evidence-based programming that meets the needs of your dosage probation population. To achieve this goal, your probation agency must identify providers with whom to partner, establish a high level of collaboration with them, and support them as they help your jurisdiction implement dosage probation.
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What Exactly Is Collaboration?
The word "collaboration" is often used interchangeably with terms such as "communication," "coordination," and "cooperation." In fact, collaboration encompasses all these terms and more:
- Communication: The exchange of information for mutual benefit
- Coordination: Exchanging information and altering activities for mutual benefit and to achieve a common purpose
- Cooperation: Exchanging information, altering activities, and sharing resources for mutual benefit and to achieve a common purpose
- Collaboration: Exchanging information, altering activities, sharing resources, and enhancing the capacity of one another for the mutual benefit of all and to achieve a common purpose
In this way, collaboration requires a formal and sustained commitment to working with others rather than alone, thinking about shared outcomes and strategies rather than siloed activities, and demanding long-term results rather than short-term accomplishments. Collaboration relies heavily on the conviction that organizations that share values and goals can accomplish more by working together than on their own while retaining uniqueness and autonomy.*
*Adapted from Carter, M. M. (2005). The emergence of collaboration as the preferred approach in criminal justice. Center for Effective Public Policy and State Justice Institute. https://cepp.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/The-Emergence-of-Collaboration-as-the-Preferred-Approach-in-Criminal-Justice-2005.pdf
Partnering with community service providers to implement dosage probation involves two steps, each containing a set of activities:
- Identify your community service provider partners. This step is completed during the dosage probation implementation model's second (preparation) phase. The step’s activities (explained below) generally include establishing a community service provider subcommittee, gathering information about the programs offered in the community, collecting relevant data, and determining which providers are best suited to partner around dosage probation.
- Align community-based services with the dosage probation model. This step is completed during the dosage probation implementation model's third (planning) phase. The step’s activities generally include establishing partnership expectations, developing collaborative policies and procedures (such as those related to referrals, information sharing, and counting dosage), conducting an evidence-based practices (EBP) fidelity assessment (such as the Correctional Program Checklist (CPC) or equivalent) of providers’ programs, and developing a follow-up process to assist community providers in strengthening their delivery of recidivism-reduction programming.
Important
Before you begin actively partnering with community service providers, give your probation agency a leg up by familiarizing yourself with the above-mentioned steps and activities in the Dosage Probation Toolkit. The more you know about the process and the results you are working toward, the more strategic you can be in preparing and planning to implement dosage probation. For example, suppose your agency needs someone trained to administer the CPC, or it has been a while since trained staff have conducted one. In that case, you will want to begin taking advantage of training opportunities to ensure your agency can complete this work in the next implementation phase.
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“I was surprised how willing community program providers were to collaborate with our dosage probation initiative even though we didn’t have additional funding to go along with our ask. They loved the idea of working towards shared intervention goals and knew that we would gently steer clients toward the programming that aligned with our vision. In turn, program providers reported how great it was to work with highly motivated clients who showed little to no resistance to programming from the start.” – Terry Thomas, Director, Washington County Community Corrections
Establish Your Community Service Provider Subcommittee
The first step in mobilizing your partnership with community service providers is establishing a community service provider subcommittee. The subcommittee is responsible for leading and carrying out the above activities and other relevant tasks identified through your jurisdiction's dosage probation logic model.
Subcommittee members are your jurisdiction's resident experts on partnering with your community providers and the primary contact points for providers throughout implementation and perhaps into the future. The subcommittee typically comprises Dosage Probation Workgroup members or a combination of workgroup members and other probation staff with experience or interest in working with local community service providers.
Subcommittees may start with only a few members or several, depending on the probation agency's resources. Membership number and composition will likely evolve as the subcommittee continues its activities. Depending on the issue or challenge being addressed, the subcommittee may invite others as temporary guests. For example, other probation staff, a community liaison from the health and human services department, or someone from a local nonprofit coordinating community-based services may help gather information from or engage local providers.
Prepare for Subcommittee Meetings
Subcommittee members should prepare for their initial meeting by reviewing the Community Service Provider Subcommittee Guide (.pdf). It describes the subcommittee’s purpose and the important leadership roles and responsibilities to be filled, suggests an agenda, and provides guidance on structuring future meetings.
The subcommittee should ultimately adapt its work to meet the needs of the probation agency, community service providers, and jurisdiction. The subcommittee will meet regularly (biweekly or monthly is suggested to start with) and will likely assign interim work to be completed by individual members or small subsets of the committee.
A progressive and steady work pace must be maintained to ensure the probation agency and its community service provider partners are well-prepared on the date of implementation (as agreed upon by the policy team and workgroup).
Consider the following questions to help launch your community service provider subcommittee successfully. You may need to address other issues specific to your agency or jurisdiction.
- Who may be most interested in helping your probation agency partner with community service providers, and why? Who was the contact point for providers during the readiness assessment? Is someone already trained to administer the CPC (or an equivalent fidelity assessment)? Is someone knowledgeable about or interested in growing their knowledge or skills around cognitive behavioral programming? Is there someone who has a good working relationship with your local providers? Someone who has the leadership skills to oversee the subcommittee's work? Someone with analytical skills to help gather and assess available data and other information?
- What is the best way to invite interest from workgroup members to join the subcommittee? From probation staff who are not workgroup members? What information should they know before deciding to join?
- What is the workload of each person who expressed interest in joining the subcommittee? Do staff have the time and workload capacity to participate? If not, can management assist in reallocating workloads?
- How can subcommittee members develop a shared understanding of what it means to partner with community service providers and the scope of work to be completed? Should each member review the relevant sections in the Dosage Probation Toolkit, or should the chairperson present the information? Perhaps a combination of the two?
Gather Information and Continue Educating Your Community Service Providers
The next step toward identifying your community service provider partners is gathering information about the programs they offer to community members involved in the criminal justice system. The process also provides an opportunity to help providers better understand your agency's expectations to make an informed decision about engaging in a dosage probation partnership. The community service provider subcommittee should take charge of these efforts.
Review Your Jurisdiction’s Dosage Probation Readiness Assessment Rating Form
Your subcommittee should begin gathering information by reviewing the Dosage Probation Readiness Assessment: Jurisdiction Rating Form completed by probation leadership during the readiness assessment. The completed responses regarding the capacity of community service providers to deliver evidence-based dosage hours will give your subcommittee a foundational understanding of the strengths, opportunities for improvement, or significant challenges to be addressed through the implementation process.
Develop an Inventory of Community-Based Programs
The subcommittee’s next step is to develop an inventory of programs delivered by community providers interested in partnering with your agency and to understand the intricacies of these programs.
For example, it may be clear which providers offer treatment for people with a substance use disorder, but it may not be readily apparent whether the programming also addresses, for example, antisocial cognition, or how much of the programming time is spent on criminogenic needs versus administrative or other tasks such as check-ins, paperwork, and so on. Let's say a program dedicates 15 minutes to housekeeping or checking in, 45 minutes to the intervention, and 15 minutes to wrapping up or completing administrative tasks. In this case, only 45 minutes of the total time can be counted as dosage.
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Cognitive Behavioral Interventions
In short, cognitive behavioral interventions help people identify and change problematic thinking patterns and behaviors to improve outcomes. Cognitive behavioral interventions—whether provided in-house or within the community—that produce the most significant reductions in recidivism:
- Offer one-on-one interventions or limit group programming to 6–12 participants
- Use a structured, manualized, evidence-based curriculum
- Use a trained facilitator
- Address criminogenic needs (especially the five most influential)
- Build skills through demonstration and practice
- Are of sufficient length and intensity to ensure skills are modeled, practiced, and reinforced
You may find the following resources helpful if you want to learn more about effective cognitive behavioral interventions.
- The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) offers many resources on its Cognitive Behavioral Therapy web page, including broadcasts, videos, webinars, information about cognitive behavioral therapy and populations with specific needs, program evaluations, and more. In addition, NIC’s Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment: A Review and Discussion for Corrections Professionals has several chapters describing cognitive-behavioral treatment and evaluating the most prominent programs for people who are justice-involved.
- The National Institute of Justice’s CrimeSolutions.gov is a searchable database of criminal justice programs, interventions, and practices rated on a continuum of evidence ranging from effective to promising, inconclusive, or no effects. CrimeSolutions uses a standardized process of reviewing and summarizing research to assist the field in understanding what works and does not work to achieve criminal justice-related outcomes.
Subcommittee members may begin by familiarizing themselves with the Community Service Provider Inventory Template (.xls) The spreadsheet contains the organizational and program elements valuable for understanding the landscape of programs in your community and identifying the providers best positioned to partner with your agency around delivering dosage-eligible programming. The spreadsheet also contains prompts for when to complete relevant tasks, such as collecting materials and conducting observations. Your subcommittee may modify the spreadsheet to address the unique dynamics or needs of your agency or community providers.
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Program inventories can take time to complete. You may need to connect with providers more than once to gather all the information and complete all the tasks necessary. While the information-gathering process should not be rushed, your subcommittee may find it beneficial to set a soft deadline to ensure the inventory is completed in a timely manner.
Community providers who attended the dosage probation orientation—delivered during the readiness assessment phase of implementation—will have already received information about their next steps in exploring a dosage probation partnership with your agency. For example, providers may have been invited to contact someone in your agency with their interest, provide preliminary information about their programs (allowing you to begin filling out your inventory), or a combination of the two. The subcommittee should follow up with interested providers accordingly.
Subcommittees typically correspond with and gather information from providers by phone, email, meetings (virtual or in-person), electronic forms, group observations, or some combination thereof, depending on how the subcommittee and providers prefer to engage in the process.
Continue Educating Your Community Service Providers
Information gathering is an opportunity to educate and strengthen relationships with local providers around recidivism-reduction practices and dosage probation. Providers are experts at delivering services that align with the disease or medical treatment model and often need to become more familiar with the recidivism-reduction model. While they learned about recidivism-reduction interventions during their readiness assessment orientation, they may benefit from continued learning and reinforcement of these concepts.
In addition, a critical part of educating providers involves sharing more information about what they can expect from the EBP fidelity assessment process—participating in the CPC (or equivalent) and subsequent action planning to strengthen their programs based on the assessment’s results—which they will need to partake in should they decide to partner around dosage probation.
QUOTE
“Service providers shouldn’t be left alone to ‘guess’ what probation may be looking for in a quality service provider. The best approach is to have no surprises; probation leadership should readily share their expectations with all interested providers, including curricula and program evaluation when appropriate.” –Denise Symdon, dosage probation technical assistance provider, Center for Effective Public Policy
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“It's really important for providers to understand their role in delivering evidence-based programs because it ensures the interventions that they use are effective at reducing recidivism.” –Nikki Niles, Director, Dodge & Olmsted Community Corrections
Consider the following questions when engaging with your local community service providers. You may need to address other issues specific to your probation agency, community providers, or jurisdiction.
- Are there any providers your agency would like to partner with—such as those who deliver an evidence-based program or a broad range of evidence-based programs—but who did not express interest in a dosage probation partnership? Did your agency receive little interest from providers overall? How might you incentivize them to explore a partnership? Would it be productive to reach out to address their concerns individually? To attend a local meeting of community providers to discuss dosage probation, respond to concerns and questions, and invite interest? How about creating healthy competition among providers through a preferred provider list, contract money, or other means?
- What unique dynamics in your community might you keep in mind as you reach out to providers (e.g., accreditation changes, frequent turnover, competition for funding, feelings of favoritism)?
- How much information is realistic to request at one time? Would the amount or type of information you want to ask for at once be overly burdensome for providers to make available?
- What is the most opportune time for requesting certain information from providers? Is one time better than another to ensure you receive an affirmative and timely response? For example, do you need to work around holidays or conferences, when most providers will be away?
- How can you use the information-gathering process to further educate providers about recidivism-reduction practices, dosage probation, and the fidelity assessment process? To model the level of collaboration you expect them to reciprocate as dosage probation partners? To strengthen relationships with them, regardless of whether you partner with them?
Gather Risk/Needs Assessment Data
Gathering information about community-based programming is critical but insufficient to determine the community service providers best positioned to partner with your agency around dosage probation. In addition to understanding the intricacies of community-based programs, the subcommittee must also gather data to understand the needs of the expected dosage probation population and how the programs in the community align or misalign with these needs.
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You may not have to start from scratch. Check with probation management or others who may have pulled or reviewed relevant data during the readiness assessment. Additionally, if you have data analysts or support specialists, it could be helpful to seek their assistance.
You may begin by reviewing the Risk/Needs Assessment Data (.doc) handout. It guides your subcommittee in understanding the distribution of “risk levels” and highest-scoring criminogenic needs within your expected dosage probation population. Ultimately, you can use this data to help you decide which service providers offer the programs that best meet the needs of people eligible for early discharge through dosage probation.
Data collection is fluid. It is not uncommon for probation agencies to change or modify how and what data is collected. If your probation agency lacks the data you want to collect, now is the time to begin planning how those data needs will be met. If you have the data but, upon review, you suspect its accuracy (e.g., people with a high likelihood of recidivism have low-scoring needs in antisocial cognition or antisocial personality), now is a good opportunity to identify the cause. For example, the issue could be the method of data collection or analysis or the administration of the assessment. Discuss the issue with others (e.g., probation leadership, data analysts, or IT staff) as needed and add it to your jurisdiction’s dosage probation logic model for improvement.
IMPORTANT
Risk/needs assessment data is crucial for performance measurement, but don’t let a lack of data be a showstopper. Leadership should take this opportunity to assess your agency’s data capabilities, and use the logic modeling process to strategize how your agency will build its data capacity during the implementation process and beyond.
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Washington County Community Corrections created a Gap Analysis (.pdf) to enhance their understanding of the categories and frequencies of risk scores and criminogenic need areas for people meeting the county’s dosage probation eligibility criteria. This example could be valuable for organizing and analyzing your own risk/needs assessment data.
Choose Your Community Service Provider Partners
When completed, the subcommittee's inventory of community-based programs and review of risk/needs assessment data will provide the information needed to examine which community service providers are willing and able to partner with your probation agency around dosage probation.
The entire subcommittee should convene to interpret the results and agree on the community service provider partners to recommend to the Dosage Probation Workgroup for review and input. Each subcommittee member should review the completed inventory and risk/needs assessment data beforehand. The complexity of the discussion will depend on the number and quality of evidence-based programs offered in your community and the estimated needs of your dosage probation population, among other considerations.
At a minimum, your community service provider partners should have the willingness and ability to:
- Deliver evidence-based programs—using structured curricula—that teach cognitive behavioral techniques and/or prosocial skill building
- Offer programming that meets one or more of your dosage probation population's most influential criminogenic needs
- Provide accessible programming to the people on probation in your area
- Share information with your agency about the progress of program participants as it relates to earning dosage hours
- Engage in developing a memorandum of understanding, contract, or something similar with your agency to agree on partnership expectations
- Engage in regular EBP fidelity assessments and participate in action planning to strengthen programs, as identified by the assessment
QUOTE
“You may not find the ideal community service provider partners right away. Sometimes the best partners are those wanting to learn, amenable to change, and willing to adapt their practices to meet your dosage probation population's needs, such as by implementing new programs, offering programs at additional locations (e.g., jails), or using a different delivery method, like an online app.” –Denise Symdon, dosage probation technical assistance provider, Center for Effective Public Policy
Every community is different. Some have access to an abundance of evidence-based treatment programs, others are critically limited, and most face service delivery challenges and difficulties. With input from the Dosage Probation Workgroup or other interested stakeholders, your subcommittee will likely need to consider the unique challenges of community service providers and the quality of programs in your area when weighing the potential for and deciding on future partnerships.
QUOTE
“We knew that for our clients to complete all their dosage hours, we would need community programming partners and treatment providers to offer evidence-based interventions addressing key dosage targets. We’d historically had some friction with our providers as they perceived we were attempting to dictate how they do their work. During the dosage project, we opened the door again to communication and provided them with an overview of the research and areas of crossover with our distinct services. Providers who worked with us to determine the crossover in our services were placed on a ‘preferred provider’ list. We prioritize referrals to those programs we’ve reviewed and trust will offer evidence-based programming to help reduce recidivism and allow our clients to make long-term, positive changes in their lives.” – Erin Johnson, Development Specialist, Dodge & Olmsted Community Corrections
Consider the following questions when deliberating and selecting your community service provider partners. You may also download Dosage Probation: A Prescription Based on Two Pilot Sites' Experiences to read about the lessons learned in two dosage pilot sites: Napa County, California, and Washington County, Minnesota. You may need to address other issues specific to your agency, community providers, or jurisdiction.
- If you partner with all interested providers, do you have the capacity to complete the community service provider activities in the next implementation phase, including the CPC or a similar fidelity assessment process, with all providers? Do the providers align with your dosage probation population's expected number and programming needs? Will all providers receive steady referrals starting on your implementation date?
- Will you pilot the partnership process with a few select providers before expanding the opportunity to interested others? How might you keep the other providers connected with your dosage probation initiative? How will you collect lessons learned to inform future partnerships with these providers?
- What feedback does the Dosage Probation Workgroup have about the providers your subcommittee recommends for partnership? Do other interested stakeholders have feedback?
- Are there any providers who stand out from the crowd—for better or worse? Are there providers who meet all, some, or none of the minimum criteria described above? How might a provider who was particularly favorable or challenging to work with during the information-gathering process inform your decision?
- Which providers deliver evidence-based programs that supplement rather than duplicate the interventions your agency provides or expects to provide through case management or in-house programming? Is duplication warranted to serve your dosage population's needs—for example, offering the same program in different places to alleviate waitlists? Do any providers offer a broad range of evidence-based programs that match more than one of your dosage probation population's most influential or highest-scoring needs?
- Are there any providers who have expressed considerable interest in or otherwise demonstrated motivation to learn more about recidivism-reduction practices or to implement an evidence-based program they do not currently offer? What assistance might your agency offer (e.g., consultation, grant writing, training)? What funding (e.g., government or private grants, funding through legislation, or nonprofit organizations) might you solicit to help providers deliver dosage-eligible programs?
- Do you need to reach out to or reengage other providers to ensure your agency partners with those best positioned to deliver dosage-eligible programming?
- How will you inform providers of your final decision to partner with them, put them on a waitlist, or decline their interest (e.g., by phone, email, a meeting, or a formal letter)? What information will you include in your communication to convey the necessary next steps to the providers you wish to partner with? What strategies will you use to maintain a good working relationship with those not selected? To limit feelings of favoritism and maintain your agency's reputation among the providers in your community?
Get Ready for Next Steps
Once you have identified your community service provider partners, you can align community-based services with the dosage probation model. The community service provider subcommittee will work hand in glove with your agency’s provider partners to establish an infrastructure to support and sustain the implementation of dosage probation (i.e., putting into place memorandums of understanding, contracts, or something similar; establishing policies and procedures; and completing an EBP fidelity assessment to strengthen the delivery of quality cognitive behavioral programming in the community).
The subcommittee will also want to start planning how to manage other community service providers who may express interest in a dosage probation partnership. As providers often share information with each other, additional providers may become interested in and want to learn more about dosage probation.