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The July issue of SDM News highlights the first of four values that drive the development of Structured Decision Making^® (SDM) assessments: consistency. See upcoming issues to learn more about the additional SDM^® values of accuracy, equity, and utility.

The latest report on this project describes evaluation activities of the past six months, analysis of 2018 parent/guardian survey results, and evaluation results to date. The goals of the Title IV-E Waiver Project are to determine whether allowing flexibility in the use of project funds helps California counties better achieve safety, permanency, and well-being for children involved in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems; and to reduce the number of children in foster care while maintaining child safety. NCCD’s study of the project began in late 2015 and is slated for completion in 2020. 

Public child welfare agencies invite families and others to actively participate in agency decisions about where children can safely live. The Team Decision Making™ (TDM) meeting focuses on whether a child must leave home due to safety concerns.

In this NCCD-hosted webinar moderated by Jennifer Cotter, an associate director at NCCD, David Burnes, PhD, introduces the idea of goal attainment scaling (GAS), a client-centered tool to generate intervention plans and measure case resolution in APS and other elder abuse response programs. GAS allows workers to capture nuanced aspects of APS work and its various moving parts involved in case intervention/progression. Without a tool that measures overall case resolutions, the effectiveness of different APS intervention models/practices cannot be systematically compared. Dr. Burnes is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, and an affiliate scientist at Baycrest Health Sciences, Rotman Research Institute. Dr. Burnes’ research centers on understanding and preventing elder abuse in the community, developing/evaluating interventions, and developing intervention outcome measures.

Risk assessment is a mechanism to classify individuals or families based on their likelihood of future system involvement. When any subgroup is overrepresented in the system, risk algorithms must balance the values of equality and equity. Administrators, practitioners, community service providers, researchers, and other subject-matter experts must choose the model that best meets their purpose.

The Positive Youth Justice Initiative (PYJI) seeks to transform the juvenile justice system through a broad-based, multi-year effort grounded in the principles of positive youth development and focused on aligning policy and practice with young people’s developmental stages. In PYJI’s current phase, which began in early 2017, community-based organizations in 11 counties across California are receiving funding to advance positive juvenile justice, working in collaboration with local coalitions to develop and implement reform activities. NCCD’s interim evaluation report explores changes in funded partners’ local advocacy environment and community power to advocate for a healthy justice system, with a focus on activities and accomplishments from January to June 2018.

NCCD’s year ends with expanding to pretrial reform work and announcing the winners of our 2018 Media for a Just Society Awards and Distinguished Achievement Award.

NCCD states its commitment to prioritizing equity when developing risk assessments and urges others to do the same. Also in this issue: information and links to a new blog series written by finalists for the 2018 Media for a Just Society Awards.

The webinar will present an overview of the Texas Elder Abuse and Mistreatment Institute-Forensic Assessment Center Network (TEAM-FACN) with a primary focus on the virtual assessment model for completing mental health capacity assessments. Using a web-based platform and readily available videophone modalities, the TEAM-FACN is able to connect Texas APS caseworkers and their clients, statewide, to a localized group of geriatric and elder abuse experts in Houston, Texas, for services including mental health capacity assessments. A brief description of the TEAM-FACN web-based referral and case communication portal will be presented along with high-level overviews of the various statewide services provided by the TEAM-FACN program. A more detailed presentation of the statewide videophone assisted mental health capacity assessments will be presented by the lead TEAM-FACN geriatrician. First-year utilization, challenges, and benefits will also be discussed.

Equity matters when developing a risk assessment. Find out why in this issue of SDM News.   

Developing and using pretrial risk assessment tools is a complex task, so NCCD offers its take on doing this successfully. And the finalists for the Media for a Just Society Awards are announced.

Supervisors are key to supporting Structured Decision Making^® practice. This issue of SDM News includes a checklist of supervision strategies and activities.