Building a Success Plan Overview
Community supervision has traditionally focused on the conditions of supervision and a case plan. The case plan is generally driven from a combination of the orders from the court and a mapping of the risk/needs assessment. Case plans run the gamut, from clinical/academic versions with goals, objectives, and techniques written in SMART language to a list of “must-dos” As you will see in this video, we offer a different way of thinking about case planning—from tracking compliance to goals and referrals to success planning with a person. From the initial conversation with a person on supervision, shifting to a success plan changes the nature of the tool. A success plan is built with a person on supervision to identify where they want to be, where they currently are, and what is standing in their way of getting there.
Success Planning
Success planning is not just a new name for an old process, we are fundamentally changing the way we work with people on supervision to do the necessary work to help them reach their greatest potential. For success planning to be effective, we need to find ways to measure progress, help establish legitimate pathways toward their success, and create the capacity for the person on supervision to fulfill their potential. The success plan module, integrated with the assessment process identified in the previous set of skills, will help the person on supervision connect the activities and interventions with measured outcomes. This will ultimately connect what we are asking the person to do with how it is helping them get closer to their best self.
Pathways to Success
As we think about success planning, we must establish pathways to success with the person on supervision. This video explains that focusing on the strengths the person has and using the information that was gleaned from the assessment is important. These strengths could be skill based that will help with employment or they could be personality-based strengths that will help with building relationships or social networks. Identifying external barriers, such as transportation or housing, and internal barriers, such as limited social connection or anti-social attitudes/beliefs, is needed. We will want to share how we will support the person and discuss what those strategies and tools might be. For example, let the person know that you will be working on exercises, role plays, and giving them homework to practice thinking differently if they find themselves in high-risk situations.
Creating Capacity
Building on establishing pathways to success and explaining how we will support the person, we will want to help them develop capacity so they can move forward. Can we help the person learn a new skill to navigate a tough relationship? Maybe we can get them connected to a support team or help them reconnect with family, or even help identify and connect them to the right treatment program. Ultimately, our role is to help them learn and build ways to reach their potential while staying out of the criminal justice system and hopefully other traps as they move towards their best self.
Establishing Progress Measures
In community supervision, we are often shaped to see behavior in zeros and ones; either the person has completed a task, or they have yet to finish it. With success planning, we want to shift the focus from completing requirements and tasks to focusing on whether the engagement or completion of the task helps the person on supervision move closer to their best self. This way, we learn whether the intervention we used had the intended effect. We must also keep in mind that incremental progress could occur and we need to be aware and recognize it. Sometimes we will make referrals or teach the person a new skill and it will not be enough to overcome the current situation. In those situations, we will want to think whether the person on supervision needs a different intervention or more of the same intervention, or whether we may even have the wrong target. For example, say a person on supervision has a substance use issue and is referred to treatment. Six weeks into treatment and they are still using drugs daily—suggesting at this point that the treatment has not taken much effect. We will want to stop and ask the following questions:
“Do we stay on course and let the treatment take time to work?”
“Do we need to change the level of care for the person and provide more intensive treatment?”
“Do we have the right treatment target? Is there an underlying mental health or unaddressed traumatic experience that is the real target?”
“Is the match to this provider appropriate—is it the right provider, for the right person, under the right conditions?”
“Are there other criminogenic needs such as social networks or antisocial beliefs/attitudes that also need to be examined?”
Once we answer these questions, we will want to adjust the intervention based on what we learned. As you can imagine, this process is ongoing and iterative throughout the entire supervision process.
Resource List
Building a Success Plan
Viglione, Jill, Danielle S. Rudes, and Faye S. Taxman (2017). “Probation Officer use of Client-Centered Communication Strategies in Adult Probation Settings” Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 56(1): 38-60
Abstract: Growing research identifies the importance of communication between probation officers and probationers. The current study examines use of motivational, client-centered communication strategies in an adult probation setting. Using surveys and observational data, this work explores: (a) whether probation officers are comfortable using motivational communication strategies and (b) how probation officers communicate with probationers. Findings suggest probation officers attempt to integrate motivational techniques in their interactions, directive, but authoritarian strategies dominate probation officer– probationer interactions. Study implications emphasize the need to enhance implementation of client-centered communication strategies to improve offender outcomes and move away from authoritarian and risk management practices.
Policy Reforms Can Strengthen Community Supervision :A framework to improve probation and parole, The Pew Charitable Trusts Report April 2020 p.20
Overview:.... states and agencies need time to analyze their systems and enact reforms on a much larger scale to ensure that probation and parole function more effectively. To help states meet this challenge, The Pew Charitable Trusts, in partnership with Arnold Ventures, established the Advisory Council on Community Supervision to develop a policy framework for state lawmakers, court officers, and community corrections personnel With those goals in mind, the council developed a menu of policies that state decision-makers and supervision administrators can use to reshape community supervision. Arnold Ventures supported the Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice at the University of Minnesota to examine the research underlying the policies and practices identified by the council, and where such an evidence base exists, it is summarized and cited in this framework.
Success Planning
Lewis, Sarah (2014). “Exploring Positive Working Relationships in Light of the Aims of Probation, Using a Collaborative Approach.” Probation Journal, 61(4): 334- 345.
Abstract: This article begins to consider the factors that promote the formation of a positive working relationship (PWR) between practitioner and probationer. The results from a pilot study are used to review the importance of ‘assist, advice and befriend’ and ‘confront, challenge and change’ within current practitioner−offender relationships. Through collaborative design, five probationers completed visual narratives to explore significant PWRs with criminal justice professionals and 36 probation staff completed a questionnaire to examine their beliefs around PWRs with probationers. The results highlight the benefit of demonstrating a genuine belief in probationers’ capacity to change and are discussed in light of the literature.
King, Christopher M. and Heilbrun, Kirk (2021). “Effects of Criminogenic Risk-Needs Assessment Feedback During Prerelease Correctional Rehabilitation.” Criminal Justice and Behavior, 48(5): 575-595.
Abstract: This pre–post follow-up randomized trial investigated the receptiveness and responsiveness of 82 incarcerated men undergoing reentry to feedback (discussion-based, form-based, or none–minimal) regarding their criminogenic risk–needs assessment results. Both short-term outcomes (self-perceived risk–needs, motivation for change, treatment readiness, and feedback satisfaction) and longer-term outcomes (intuitional conduct, rearrest, or halfway house return) were examined. As hypothesized, among study completers (n = 67), motivation for change was significantly higher following discussion feedback, and both feedback formats were rated favorably by participants. Contrary to hypotheses, feedback recipients, including those who showed gains at post, did not appear reliably distinct from others on longer-term outcomes; nor were most outcomes significantly associated with baseline risk scores. Feedback about risk and needs may be useful in correctional treatment for motivation enhancement and treatment orienting, but special attention to measurement, contextual, and intensity factors is warranted.
Establishing Progress Measures
Ostermann, Michael, Hyatt, Jordan M., DeWitt, Samuel E. (2019). “The Influence of Technical Violation Revocations of Parole Efficacy: Employing Competing Risks Survival Analyses to Address Methodological Challenges.” Journal of Crime and Justice, 43(3): 323-341.
Abstract: Failures among the community supervision population are a major contributor to prison populations. Revocations of parole supervision due to technical parole violations (TPRs) often result in the incarceration of a parolee for violating the terms of their supervised release. This study employs several strategies for integrating TPRs into the construct of recidivism, a common outcome measure in correctional evaluations. TPRs are either ignored, combined with rearrest, or treated as a competing risk to rearrest. Each framework is employed to estimate survival rates among multi-year prison release cohorts in which parolee supervision is stratified by actuarial risk level. Results suggest that the way TPRs are integrated into evaluations of parolee recidivistic behavior patterns can influence the magnitude and nature of a study’s results. This is significant as costly policy decisions are often informed by evaluation research focusing on time to failure measures. Methodological and ideological remedies are proposed.
Pathways to Success
Harding, David J., Bruce Western, and Jasmin A. Sandelson (2022). “From Supervision to Opportunity: Reimagining Probation and Parole” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 701(1): 8-25
Abstract: Across a variety of measures of safety and rehabilitation, our current systems of parole and probation are failing. Research shows that community supervision fails to reduce crime; traps its subjects in cycles of criminal justice involvement; is excessively punitive; and creates widespread harm to individuals, families, and communities—all while failing to significantly contribute to the social and economic integration of those under its control. We argue for a wholesale reform of community supervision, including the abandonment of current monitoring and control functions, and the repurposing of resources into systems of support for the hundreds of thousands of people leaving prison and jail every year. We also provide an overview to the articles assembled for this volume, which chart the challenges facing those on community supervision and offer a roadmap of potential policy solutions for improving the life chances of formerly incarcerated and justice-involved people.
Creating Capacity
Dominey, Jane (2019). “Probation Supervision as a Network of Relationships: Aiming to be Thick, Not Thin.” Probation Journal, 66(3): 283-302.
Abstract: This article is about the networks of relationships (between people and between organisations) that underpin probation supervision. Drawing on evidence from a study researching these interactions, it develops two models of supervision (‘thin’ and ‘thick’) by taking themes that shape supervision and charting the interplay between them. The article develops these models in the increasingly fragmented landscape that has followed the Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) reforms in England and Wales. The concepts of ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ are used here to describe the supervisory network. Thin supervision describes a minimal and administrative approach to supervision. By contrast, thick supervision requires a network with strong and purposeful links. The article acknowledges the impact of public sector spending cuts on probation services and concludes by reflecting on the challenge of building and sustaining