Probation & Diversion, Juvenile Detention Facilities
Multi-County Juvenile Detention Center Upgrades to RiteTrack for Facility Management
The Multi County Juvenile Detention Center (MCJDC), in Lancaster Ohio, is a 48-bed facility that went live with RiteTrack in 2018. Multi County was using an old detention management system primarily for intake. Their old system could not manage incident reports, room confinement calculations or youth personal property. This system also didn’t allow for data collection or reporting capabilities, and the facility relied on paper documentation and Excel spreadsheets to supplement it and help run the organization.
Register to watch the case study recording where you can hear the director and assistant director of MCJDC discuss their experiences with implementing and using RiteTrack as their case management and reporting database system.
You may be able to relate to the Director of the MCJDC, Dana Moore, who said in the past if she wanted medical information on a youth or to see if a social worker met with a youth that she would have to ask the staff. Now with RiteTrack all Director Moore must do is open the youth’s file in RiteTrack, and all the information on a youth is stored in one easily accessible location. Moore can see how many incident reports she had, the type of incident reports, along with demographic data on the youth at the facility.
Director Moore also reported that staff is more engaged with the youth. The staff feel more empowered in their interactions as they have access to information on youth. MCJDC employees also report that the RiteTrack system is easy to use, and they can locate information quickly. Dana and the MCJDC staff report that intakes are completed in less than half the time it took previously which enables staff to have more time to provide service to the youth.
Handel worked closely with MCJDC to customize reports that provide Moore with up-to-the-minute data on what’s occurring in the facility as well as summarizing the previous day’s events involving the youth. Director Moore is now able to utilize a case management and facility management system that meets the requirements of the State of Ohio and facilitates real-time data collection. Required annual reports often took days to compile but are now completed within a few moments drawing from the data entered daily into RiteTrack. These reports can be exported to Excel or PDF formats as well. Exporting to these formats from RiteTrack is standard functionality.
One of the biggest differences Director Moore sees between the previous solutions and RiteTrack is the support provided by Handel. “With the old vendor there could be days of e-mailing back and forth before we could get an answer,” but with Handel she said “I always get an immediate response with we call even on evenings or weekends. It doesn’t matter because the project manager was always there for us.”
For more information about RiteTrack or to schedule a demonstration click here.
Multi-County Juvenile Detention Center Shares Benefits of RiteTrack
When the Multi-County Juvenile Detention Center in Ohio decided to implement a new case management software system two years ago, they had several goals in mind:
- Replace Excel spreadsheets and paper forms with a centralized, web-based software
- Improve internal operations and outcomes through better information
- Ease the process of generating and submitting information to outside agencies
The MCJDC is a 48-bed facility that serves boys and girls. They accept youth from four Ohio Counties: Fairfield, Licking, Hocking, and Perry. In the fall of 2017, Multi-County chose the RiteTrack Juvenile Case Management software from Handel Information Technologies. The implementation project kicked off in late October 2017 and Multi-County went live on their new system on January 1, 2018.
During a recent webinar, Steve Koenig from Handel sat down with Dana Moore, Multi-County Superintendent, and Bret Sark, Deputy Superintendent, to discuss their experience with RiteTrack (RT) some 15 months after going live.
The following is a summary of some of the key takeaways from this conversation. Some of the wording has been paraphrased for clarity and in some cases similar topics have been grouped together.
Why a New Case Management System?
Multi-County is required to report back to various stakeholders. With the old process it was very tedious and sometimes outright difficult to find, collect, and report back good information.
The old process consisted of many disjointed systems including multiple Excel spreadsheets, paper forms, and a case management database. In many cases, one employee may have a specific spreadsheet for specific information that would not be shared with others. According to Dana Moore, when someone requested information or staff needed information there was generally a lot of time wasted running around looking for the data or even finding the person who had the statistics. “It was not only difficult gathering the information we needed to make decisions and to provide services to the youth served, but it was also very difficult compiling the necessary reports required both internally and externally,” she says.
“With the new system, we have instant access to all the information we need at our fingertips. When someone calls for information we no longer have to say ‘Hold, please; we will get back with you.’ We can give instant answers, and we now have high quality information readily accessible so that we can make decisions in real-time.”
RiteTrack also gives them a battery of standard reports as well as reports specifically customized for them so that they now can provide feedback to their stakeholders with the click of a button.
Key Outcomes
Dana and Brett repeatedly mention the importance of having a centralized, web-based system, where data is available in real-time. Yet, security for sensitive information is also vital. Access to the centralized system is set up through different security groups so that individuals logging on to the system have access only to the information required for them to do their jobs. For instance, law enforcement personnel may just have access to basic client demographics, whereas a shift manager may access incident reports, restraints, and room-confinement information.
The focus of this initial phase has been on the intake process which is the heart of their operation. Dana says they were surprised to find out how many of their needs were met by RiteTrack “directly out of the box.” They had initially expected that they would need to do several customizations but decided to dive in and discover what RiteTrack could do for them at the start. What they found was that RT right away met most of their needs and so they were able to keep customizations to a minimum.
“There isn’t any information from our facility that doesn’t go into RT somewhere,” says Dana. She believes that having all this information allows staff to be better at time management which makes them more efficient and which ultimately leads to better decision-making.
Another key benefit Dana mentions is RT’s ability to export data to Excel. Since all staff are very familiar with Excel, this is of great value. RiteTrack gives them a centralized system for all their data but they can still export to Excel and do further data analysis as needed.
A further benefit Dana declares is that their paper consumption has been cut in half since implementing RT. Not only that, but they have been able to scale back their copier contract also and these translate to some significant financial savings.
Brett additionally explains how some of the reports in RiteTrack have helped improve the quality of information. “The Missing Data Report gives us direct insight into what important data fields our employees may miss, and we can catch those mistakes and correct them. In the past these have gone undetected and have caused problems down the road. Having access to staff information, attendance, and performance records is also very valuable.”
Best Practices
Multi-County went live after only two months of implementation work. Dana credits this speedy process to their willingness to see how much they could use the system right “out of the box” and not to over-customize RT. “Once we dived in, we actually cut in half what we thought we needed to customize,” she says. She strongly emphasizes the importance of plunging in rather than doing too much speculation as to what an agency may want. She recognizes that change is hard, and most employees don’t like big changes. Yet, she has found that her employees picked up RiteTrack very quickly. “It is so intuitive,” she adds. “After just basic training, our employees figured it out. It also helps that the system is organized very logically and that it guides us through the intake process step-by-step.” Talking about the go-live date on January 1, 2018 she readily says, “We didn’t have a single glitch that first day. All of our data was there and our reports were spot on.”
Dana and Bret also credit Handel’s Project Manager, Jeanne Wolcott, and Steve Koenig for being instrumental in their success. “There were times when it would have been really easy to hit the panic button had we not had Jeanne on the other end to guide us and give us ready answers. When we needed help, she would jump and do a screenshare, showing us how to do things.”
“During the week that your staff spent here at the initial kick-off, you pulled in someone from every side of the facility to answer questions such as: What are your needs and what do your reports look like? You were able to understand our needs and then demonstrate how RT could meet those needs. I can’t imagine a better process. That was huge. Everyone felt valued and it was a big part of getting everyone’s buy-in. They felt that they were heard.”
“The success for us was the team you provided. It made the transition very seamless and positive. Doing the project in smaller phases is also something I strongly recommend.”
On-Going Support
Brett and Dana are both very complimentary about their experience since going live in January 2018. “Handel’s support is absolutely first class.” When asked about the biggest difference between their former vendor and Handel, Dana doesn’t hesitate, “With the old vendor, there could be days of emailing back and forth before we could get an answer. With Handel we get an immediate response when we call—evenings, weekends, or even holidays. It doesn’t matter. Jeanne is always there for us.”
She brings up an example of a recent incident. Ohio Department of Youth Services recently visited them and needed a report in a very specific format. RiteTrack didn’t have a report in the exact format they needed so they called Handel. Within one hour they had their report. “This is almost unheard of,” Dana recounts.
Future Expansion
As Multi-County continues to realize the immense impact RiteTrack has had on their operations, Dana says she is making plans for future expansions. “Our next goal is to expand RT into the clinical area so that our medical department can use it. We also plan to implement support for the Topaz signature pad.”
“When a mandate comes down requiring some new report, we have the confidence that RiteTrack can provide the answers.”
Register to watch the recording here.
Implementing and Monitoring PREA Standards with a Data System
The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) passed in 2003 was to provide for the research and analysis of the incidents of prison rape. While this is focused mostly on the adult corrections system, PREA also is monitored in juvenile detention facilities as well.
Handel has worked closely with our customers to build implementations for juvenile facilities to manage the complexities of PREA standards. Whether your facility is beginning to incorporate these tracking standards or is overwhelmed by the intricacies or find they have become burdensome, register to watch this recording exploring a RiteTrack implementation that incorporated PREA seamlessly.
PREA standards require the use of risk assessments, PREA-related questions (e.g., sexual orientation, gender identification, etc.), agency documentation, and reporting to reach the outlined goals in the initiative.
During this recording, we will demonstrate those features in RiteTrack plus the following:
- Client intakes
- Progress notes
- Risk assessments
- Medical documentation
- Room assignments
- Staff training documentation
- Outside agency documentation
- Record keeping
- Data generation
- PREA reporting
Handel has implemented RiteTrack software in numerous juvenile facilities, juvenile detention and juvenile treatment facilities. Register and watch this recording to see how RiteTrack assists facilities in the day-to-day operations as well as incorporating required PREA standards.
Performance-based Standards & RiteTrack Partner to Improve Data Entry for PbS customers
Juvenile facilities across the country have opted to work with Performance-based Standards to assist with monitoring confinement conditions in treatment services and residential facilities using national standards and performance outcomes.
PbS is a data-driven improvement model grounded in research that holds juvenile justice agencies, facilities and residential care providers to the highest standards for operations, programs and services.
Twice a year juvenile facilities compile data from day-to-day case management (including incident reports) and enter it into the PbS program interface. The PbS system then analyzes the data to assess whether the facility is meeting performance outcomes and uses this data to create summary reports. These analyses are used to create improvement plans and direct needed reforms in a facility.
Often during the months of April and October, many facilities who partner with PbS for this valuable service struggle with the time it takes for staff to perform daily responsibilities and reenter collected data into the PbS system.
However, in 2017 Handel met PbS at the Michigan Juvenile Detention Association (MJDA) Conference. Both of us saw the potential of a partnership between our two organizations. Over the next few months, we created a RiteTrack module that enables the PbS analysis system to integrate directly with RiteTrack’s case management and reporting solution which eliminates the duplicate data entry staff had to complete for the required reporting periods.
This RiteTrack and PbS integration enables juvenile detention and juvenile justice organizations’ staff to enter daily documentation into one case management system, RiteTrack—which also produces user friendly and reporting for other facility needs—while the integration module imports the required information directly into PbS’s system for the bi-annual reporting periods.
RiteTrack’s juvenile justice module captures required information like incident reports for PbS reporting. Because of the aligned data capture in the systems, information documented in RiteTrack is submitted to PbS through the one-of-a-kind integration module and eliminates duplicate data entry—saving detention staff and administration valuable time.
Contact us if you would like more information on the PbS and RiteTrack integration module or RiteTrack’s solution for juvenile justice and detention facilities.
Multi-County Juvenile Detention Center Goes Live on New RiteTrack System
In January of 2018, the Multi-County Juvenile Detention Center, a 48-bed juvenile facility located in Lancaster, Ohio implemented a new RiteTrack database system.
Photo: Jess Grimm/Eagle-Gazette
The facility’s old system was used for tracking intakes and youth demographics but could not provide them with critical information on staff workload, incidents, or shift logs. To obtain this information, the Director of the facility Dana Moore had to review the paperwork associated with each shift. “The only way I could find out about an incident report or a meeting with the social worker or nurse was if I received a paper copy of it or if someone came and told me about it,” she said. With the new system “I can see what is going on with youth simply by opening their file in RiteTrack.”
It was clear that the facility needed a new system. Moore wanted one that allowed them to see data in real-time as events unfolded. Staff and administrators preferred a solution with a simple interface that gave them easy access to what happened on previous shifts as well as current events on the youth. The new system should also provide real-time, reliable and valid data to use in the reporting to the Ohio Department of Youth Services and the governing board.
After a thorough investigation of offerings, the Multi-County Juvenile Detention Facility opted to implement RiteTrack. This new system provided staff and administrators with a focus on the intake process, incident reporting, social worker case notes, and nursing documentation. The powerful reporting capabilities in the new system has transformed mere data into useful information which in turn guides decision-making and even has the potential to direct policy-making. RiteTrack records activities from previous days and shifts and tracks current facility activities including daily shift assignments, staff call-offs, facility inspections, youth room confinement time, room confinement reason, incidents, youth location throughout the day, and offsite appointments.
With the engagement of Dana and her full staff, the implementation of RiteTrack into the Multi County Juvenile Detention Center has been a major success. “It’s always a pleasure to ease the workload of staff and witness the reduction in reams of paper,” said Jeanne Wolcott, Project Manager.
The initial success of the implementation has prompted further discussion of future projects which may include additional reporting needs, school billing capabilities, and signatures of youth and staff within RiteTrack. “It is so nice to have everything stored in one place, I don’t have to look through all these different binders to get information on a kid,” said Moore.
Handel creates RiteTrack, a web-based, centralized database, information management software that is used by juvenile justice agencies throughout the country. It provides the primary means for caseworkers, administrators and other professionals to manage their clients and caseloads and provides reliable reporting to generate reliable data.
Kitsap County Talks About RiteTrack
Kitsap County went live on RiteTrack in January 2017. In this video clip, Michael Merringer, Director of the Kitsap County Juvenile Court Administration talks about the implementation of RiteTrack, it’s impact so far, and what it is like to work with Handel.
Kitsap County Juvenile and Family Court Services Goes Live on New RiteTrack Case Management System
Kitsap County Juvenile Family and Court Services went live on a RiteTrack system in January 1, 2017. This implementation represents the culmination of years of work and planning to create a system that spans data from three areas: juvenile detention, youth offenders, and non-offenders.
Juvenile detention cases encompass sentenced youth or youth brought in by law enforcement. Youth offender cases cover drug courts and diversion efforts while non-offender cases deal with children in need of services (CHINS), at-risk youth (ARY), child protective services (CPS), and truancies. With all of this juvenile case management information centralized, the ease that staff can provide services to has been bolstered.
The County signed a contract with Handel in April of 2016 and many of the staff worked diligently on defining the scope and working closely with the designated Project Manager to outline processes to incorporate into the system. Project Manager Ben McKay said “our success is based on our partners, and the dedication from Kitsap’s team helped ensure the successful implementation of this project.”
Kitsap County Juvenile Family and Court Services uses RiteTrack’s standard functionality and also configured the system to meet specific needs and create specialized reports. One of the most valuable reports is the juvenile year-over-year comparison that aggregates data from the system including the length of stay and demographics to provide a big picture of trending changes and generates data to submit to the state of Washington for reporting purposes.
In order to recognize the hard work and diligence that went into a successful project of this scope, the County held a celebration February 16, 2017. (Read our blog about it here) We’re so pleased to have developed a strong, working relationship with the leadership and staff at Kitsap County Juvenile Family and Court Services.
Kitsap County’s Juvenile Department/Superior Court is committed to providing innovative, comprehensive, and effective services to youth, families, schools and the community within a quality work environment, by professional, caring staff.
Handel creates RiteTrack, a web-based, centralized database, information management software that is used by juvenile justice agencies throughout the country. It provides the primary means for caseworkers, administrators and other professionals to manage their clients and caseloads and provides reliable reporting to generate reliable data.
Improving Processes and Creating a Successful Implementation for Kitsap County Juvenile and Family Court Services
It all began with a conference presentation on OneNote and a question.
“This could be described as a ‘textbook project,” said Bud Harris, Director, Information Services. “It began at the right place, the right time, with the right thought processes, and all the right people came together.”
The concept that grew into the Kitsap County Juvenile Family and Court Services RiteTrack Case Management System came from the question: what if involved youths’ records could be better managed and the information shared between programs?
Michael Merringer, Juvenile Court Administrator, became involved with probation in the 1990s and found that common practices for managing youth records created segregated, unreliable information. Every time a juvenile came into detention, they would make a new paper file for them that would include assessments, medical history, and recommended programming which could not be easily shared nor was it common to share cross-department.
However, following the seemingly commonplace OneNote presentation, Merringer had a flash of insight. Wouldn’t it be great if they operated with ONE file for ONE kid? All forms would be carried in that file, staff would have access, various people could contribute, and everyone would have access to the information they needed (subject to appropriate security restrictions) while keeping everything up-to-date.
This was the vision that blossomed into the carefully planned, meticulously implemented project with an overall goal of improving access, security and accuracy of client information, examining and improving internal processes, and providing reliable, statistical data.
Sometimes projects also provide unintended benefits. Merringer said the RiteTrack project had such a benefit: process improvement. The key philosophy applied in this project was to look at the process first before applying the technology. The staff improved processes during the mapping phase by cutting out redundant efforts and wasted activity. Mapping processes across multiple departments created a visual representation of how each department dealt with their processes and cases, and was valuable because it provided visuals of the processes to assist in directing the technology. Because of this project, the Department can monitor processes and continually improve them to better meet the needs of staff, too.
After defining many internal processes, the department went to look at available options for juvenile justice information management systems. As with most system explorations options included building in-house, buying off-the-shelf, or some combination thereof. To find how other jurisdictions managed their juvenile data they visited other counties in the state and kept hearing about the RiteTrack Juvenile Justice Software from Handel IT. Because they defined processes prior to searching for a solution, they were able to use them to match process flows with available offerings.
Following the review of available options, the Department found that RiteTrack offered the combination of an off-the-shelf solution paired with configuration capabilities that could create a solution to perfectly fit the diligently outlined processes. After a competitive bidding process in 2015, RiteTrack and Handel were chosen as the solution and vendor for this project.
“Over several years a group of dedicated individuals accepted the challenge of creating an electronic environment for case management for the Department. Members of the team came from every area of the County and Juvenile Department. Working together as a team, the successful development of the Juvenile Department’s RiteTrack Case Management System was realized,” the Department’s launch party invitation read.
Kitsap County went live on its new RiteTrack Juvenile Case Management system on January 1, 2017. A celebration of the successful implementation and go-live took place in the offices of the Kitsap County Juvenile Court Administration on February 16. Handel is pleased to partner with the Department and provide the tools to help create its ideal data management solution for its involved youth.
Relationship between RiteTrack and Disproportionate Minority Contact
When reviewing DMC aspects, in my mind I kept coming back to the issue of how much needs to be encompassed when implementing and maintaining DMC standards into a juvenile justice program. These standards incorporate assessments, evaluation, and monitoring of juveniles in care. However, DMC doesn’t only apply to youth in detention. It really incorporates all areas of youth contact within the juvenile justice continuum of care.
Example of statistical report with DMC data.
Often DMC communities may have an alternative reporting center within it. I’m curious to see how information is communicated between one part in the juvenile justice continuum of care with another part. There is the potential for an enormous amount of time to be spent creating policies that address information sharing parameters, managing confidential information, and memorandums of understanding between these organizations. Even though data points like race, ethnicity, gender, geography, and offenses seem straightforward, these would likely need to be clearly defined with consensus from members of the continuum of care.
So how can organizations or programs in the juvenile justice continuum of care address information challenges like these? Using a web-based software like RiteTrack as the single-point-of-entry tool provides the framework from which programs can support the youth and the stakeholders.
Risk Assessment tool in the solution.
For a community to address DMC, there has to be involvement from shareholders in the community. There has to be planning and agreement on issues. Organizations must develop intervention that involves programming. Agencies need to evaluate whether the agreed upon plan is working. Finally, programs must be monitored to make sure that identified problems area continued to be addressed. Within all of these steps, the most important area may be the collection of data because youth data is pervasive in all these steps. RiteTrack collects data that occurs throughout all point of the juvenile justice continuum from first point-of-contact, risk assessment, community involvement, and if needed detention. In addition to extensive documentation, RiteTrack quickly generates reports and statistical data based on real-time data that is accurate and reliable. Implementing RiteTrack into operations is not just a procurement or download of another piece of software. It is a partnership with Handel IT to enhance and improve communities, not only by supporting a continuum of care, but also by creating a central point-of-entry to provide the framework to address DMC issues.
To see my most recent webcast reviewing DMC functionality and reporting in RiteTrack, click here and register to watch the recording.
Linking JDAI standards to RiteTrack
The JDAI helpdesk website states, “Since 1992, the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, a project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, has demonstrated that jurisdictions can safely reduce reliance on secure confinement and generally strengthen their juvenile justice systems through a series of interrelated reform strategies.”
As you may know, I was a former Director of the Perry Multi County Juvenile Facility (a juvenile community 
correction facility in Ohio) and our focus was on treatment of juvenile, male felons through a cognitive-based treatment program. I do want to point out that I am not an expert in Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative (JDAI) standards; however, in my current position with Handel I have become 
much more familiar with them. JDAI standards closely align with the American Correctional Association (ACA) standards and they incorporate the Prison Rape Elimination Standards (PREA) as well. Both the ACA and PREA standards are areas that I am very familiar with having completed two ACA audits and a PREA audit.
As revealed in the JDAI Detention Reform Brief Cost-Saving Approach, some of the JDAI strategies are to increase system efficiency, develop a non-secure alternative that is less expensive than detention, help keep kids out of state facilities and help explore the most cost-saving intervention for a youth. From my experience in a juvenile facility, I know first-hand the ease with which the juvenile correction community easily faults to the “Well, that’s the way we’ve always done it…” or “That’s just the way it’s done.” I was a process-oriented director and one of my skills was to always look at why we do something and if we could do it better. I think that is why I am intrigued to learn (from my exploration of JDAI) that a focus seems to be to look at problem solving differently and to focus on different options and outcomes beyond the traditional way of committing youth to detention.
However, I am not here to give you more information about the JDAI standards. I want to tell you about a software solution that can greatly help facilities recognize and implement the JDAI strategies in their communities and better manage their cases and facilities as well. This solution is RiteTrack and it is juvenile facility software that assists in 
managing your facility and the youth in that facility. It is equipped with a powerful reporting module that can incorporate many of the JDAI required reports. Additionally RiteTrack can also assist the JDAI local community that is responsible for entering, collecting and generating data to address compliance with the JDAI standards. RiteTrack is a software system that tracks common functions like incident, restraint and room confinement documentation, along with common practices of treatment plans, group notes and room assignments. RiteTrack excels as a facility and youth management system while allowing you to generate JDAI data not only from a juvenile facility level but also to a functionality level that compiles JDAI data for a whole JDAI community.
I will focus on three points about RiteTrack and JDAI: generating and managing data, using data to make decisions and managing the facility.
Point 1: Generating and Managing Data
Data is an essential component of JDAI, and it only makes sense that you have to generate data as the first step before you can analyze and use that data. While JDAI encourages the person or persons who share(s) the responsibility of data generating to use the simple format of Excel, it is not the most effective or efficient method. JDAI might recommend Excel because so many people have access to it; and in a JDAI community, the data come from many different areas and levels. Data generation has to occur at the probation officer level, the court level, the community alternative placement level, detention level and other agencies such as community mental health or community drug and alcohol treatment organizations that may be involved with the youth. So there is a possibility that you have many different organizations collecting data that then have to be transferred or given to one centralized “data collector” to process and manage. RiteTrack can play a very important role in this “collection” by acting as the central point of entry.
RiteTrack allows youth to be entered into the system and then additional data added to the youth’s record. Once information is added to RiteTrack then it is saved and will stay with the youth throughout his/her involvement in the process, even including if the youth is placed in an alternative placement or detention. Data such as race, gender, age, geography, prior placements, prior and current criminal offence, offence type, involvement with child welfare, involvement with substance abuse treatment and length of stay in detention are all areas in which data needs to be collected for JDAI standards. RiteTrack offers all those components as standards within the basic RiteTrack system, so a youth’s record in RiteTrack can contain all this information (generated by various agencies involved with the youth) in one record in one place. Additional areas that are important such as risk assessments, which are done either on paper or in another system, can be added to the RiteTrack system so that all information that is collected on a youth is stored and accessible in a centralized data collection location. This whole set of data can be recalled or opened at any time by qualified RiteTrack users. RiteTrack is a web-based solution that is easily accessible with internet access, so long as the user passes security clearances set up in each facility system.
Point 2: Using Data in Making Decisions
We all are aware of the trends in juvenile justice to use evidence-based practices to make decisions based on data. Decisions should not be based on how we feel or what is available, but they should be objective tools to assess level of risk. JDAI suggests that we evaluate data on a regular basis (e.g., daily population counts of youth in detention, quarterly reports and continual review of the data collected such as race, gender, age and geography). Therefore, data must be gathered and analyzed throughout the process and throughout the community that is involved in the JDAI. Data analysis can help shareholders decide when and if an effective community-based alternative would be appropriate. Data analysis can assure that detention is used only when appropriate and only for those youth that are high risk of reoffending. Data can assist in determining bias in the system based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and geography, among others; and determine if there is “institutional bias” within the system. Only when we see the data over a period of time can we make good decisions.
RiteTrack allows for all data, generated by a JDAI community to be stored in a centralized location and readily available to help in the decision-making process and JDAI reporting. Such a system is more cost effective and more efficient, and allows easier tabulation of data, which facilitates a better, more streamline decision process for the youth in a JDAI community.
Since RiteTrack is also facility software, data generated from youth being in the facility (i.e., number of incident reports, number of restraints, time in room confinement, number of hours of group participation, and facility population reports) can also be used to make decisions and determine a youth’s progress while in the facility itself.
Point 3: Managing a Facility
To participate in JDAI a facility must track and report on the following: race, ethnicity, gender, age, geography, placement history, child welfare involvement, mental health, substance abuse, education, family history, housing, prior offences, probation status, offence and offence type, aggravating factors and length of stay in detention.
RiteTrack tracks all of these data points. Each of these points are collected and tracked via drop-down menu options that are accessible and may be customized by a system administrator. In addition, many of these points have models in RiteTrack that allow for input of descriptive narratives. For example, tracking aggravating factors would most likely involve a short story or description of the aggravating factors. Workers unfamiliar with a youth would need to see what led to, or what is being described as the aggrieving factor in the incident entry. Therefore, through progress notes, RiteTrack tracks the number of incidents as well as descriptive elements.
Finally, in addition to collecting, tracking and reporting all the youth personal and participation data for a facility, RiteTrack also functions as a case management and facility management module. RiteTrack, as a case management system, encompasses treatment plans, progress notes and demographic information. As a facility management system it includes functions such as shift reporting, inventory management and incident, restraint and room-confinement reporting. RiteTrack complies with the common practices of attaching pictures, reports, video clips or tabulation of hours and minutes of room confinement time to the data entries. RiteTrack also provides a due process model, which is required for grievances, and which demonstrates compliance with due process related to major incidents within a facility. The RiteTrack design of both a case management model and facility model incorporated into one solution, allows for data reporting from both “parts” of the RiteTrack system.
RiteTrack offers the ability to generate data for the JDAI community while also serving its primary focus as juvenile facility software that manages a facility and the youth within the facility. Doing all this as a single software system, RiteTrack is an effective, efficient and cost-saving approach for any community and facility participating in the JDAI standards.
To see a demonstration of the RiteTrack system and to see how RiteTrack can assist your organization or community in compliance with the JDAI standards, please give me a call at 740-994-0500 or send me an e-mail with any question you may have at steve.koenig@handelit.com
Thinking Differently About Seclusion and Room Confinement in Current Juvenile Corrections
My personal introduction to Handel IT and the RiteTrack software system (see my previous blog) was in no small part due to the topic of seclusion. While the topic of seclusion and room confinement is bigger than RiteTrack software, seclusion has become a big issue for juvenile and adult facilities in Ohio and across the country.
Perry Multi-County Juvenile Facility in New Lexington, Ohio
As the former director of the Perry Multi-CountyJuvenile Facility, I served a mandate to provide rehabilitation to juveniles in a correctional setting, rather than a punitive punishment in an institutional setting. I firmly believed that seclusion, as a form of punishment, was detrimental to our philosophy of assisting and helping youth. In short, if you locked a juvenile in a room (seclusion), how would you expect him to reintegrate into a therapeutic treatment model without unintended consequences such as an unwillingness to engage in a treatment program? My belief is that seclusion, used solely as punishment, was counter to a treatment philosophy of engagement and making better choices. Although as a director, I also understand that there were times in which the only means of protecting an individual youth, my staff and the facility as a whole was seclusion. These issues of when is seclusion necessary, when is seclusion needed, and when does seclusion become a punitive issue are concerns that all directors deal with in our profession. They are also issues that, at some point in time, we have to give answers to for why we did what we did and why we made the decisions we made.
When I had to provide a total of the number of seclusion hours for 2013 in our facility, I believed that my total number of hours would be pretty low (fewer than 100 hours). After all, I opposed room confinement as a form of punishment. After we compiled the numbers, I was surprised to learn that I had signed off on over 300 hours of seclusion for my youth during 2013. That is more than three times my original estimation, and that high number made me re-think my role as a director. Not only had I not stayed true to my principle that seclusion had to be used on a very limited basis, but also my standard had not been transferred to my staff in a way that put that principle into practice at our facility.
In April of 2014, two months after collecting that seclusion data for the state, I watched a PBS Frontline special presentation on seclusion in the Maine State Prison. Prison Warden, Rodney 
Boufford, was actively attempting to reduce seclusion hours for his inmate population. While I understand that the inmates Warden Boufford was dealing with were much different from the juveniles I was dealing with, the topic of seclusion is still very relevant. It was very interesting to see the inmates in Maine and hear what they were saying, while also hearing from the warden, supervisors, line staff, psychologist and others who oversee them on a daily basis. I was surprised that the idea of reducing isolation was even present in a state institution with very violent and aggressive felons and a generally negative-thinking atmosphere. However, they were not only thinking of reducing seclusion hours; they were beginning to implement it. The show takes about an hour to watch, and I recommend it as an important segment for those involved in corrections.
The Frontline special and new statistics required by the state of Ohio got me thinking. Am I, as an administrator, doing enough to reduce the confinement times in my facility, and do our policies as a facility reflect our need to reduce confinement time? At our monthly supervisory meeting a few days after watching Frontline, I addressed the need to revamp our policies and procedures and to eliminate room confinement as an issue of punishment and time and as appropriate only in cases where the safety of staff and others is at risk. Our current policies were time-focused (i.e., one incident equals so many hours of confinement). Our new policies would be behavior-focused whenever youth were complying and there was no documented threat to the safety of the staff or other youth. The new policies would encourage youth to begin the process or re-engaging into the general population and everyday activities. Because the facility activities were meant to be therapeutic and if you could get the youth to engage in therapeutic opportunities, then you could begin treatment.
While my ideas were agreed upon overall, there were many who expressed reservations. I heard concerns such as the changes I championed would “harm the staff and would make youth believe that we were not serious about dealing with behavioral issues.” Some felt that if we made these changes, focusing on reducing room confinement, that “someone, another youth or a staff member would be hurt.” I listened to all of their issues and then I encouraged my supervisory staff to view the video and then come back to me with their thoughts. I also asked each one of them to estimate 
the number of seclusion hours that they believe we had accumulated in 2013. I had not given them our actual number, but I had used the number of 300+ seclusion hours as my example. Every single person asked gave me a number that was much lower than that. So I challenged them to watch the video to see what they are doing in the State of Maine and then to tell me why we couldn’t do the same thing in our facility. I also told them that the number of seclusion hours that they all had estimated for 2013 was a very different number than what we had actually accumulated. My point was that we thought we were doing well, but the 2013 seclusion hours showed me that as a group we had failed.
At our next meeting we addressed the topic of seclusion and this time there were very few detractors. All the supervisory staff agreed that we needed to reduce our confinement time, and that we needed also to continue to do our duty to protect the other youth and the staff and maintain the therapeutic environment of the facility. To do all those things we needed to create a balance between protection and seclusion. That balance needed to be evident in our policies and procedures, as well as in our thinking and in our implementation. We agreed that if we could create a balance, then we would better fulfill the need and responsibility for both safety and treatment.
The topic of seclusion was also very relevant in Ohio at the time. The Ohio Department of Youth Services was under federal monitoring for various reasons, and nearing the end of the monitoring the issue of seclusion or room confinement became a concern. The state began addressing how it could reduce seclusion hours of youth. In addition to its being a valid issue, it was also a requirement for “getting out from under federal monitors.” Recently Ohio Department of Youth Series was released from the lawsuit and has made very progressive and needed changes in seclusion hours.
See these two articles: Lawsuit over: Everyone won and Judge ends federal monitoring monitoring of Ohio’s youth prison system
The article above from the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports: “The state has also dramatically rolled back its use of solitary confinement – also called ‘seclusion’. An infraction that brings 8 hours of seclusion now would have been punished with 600 hours of seclusion when the lawsuit was filed, according to Cynthia Coe, a U.S. Justice Department attorney involved with the case.”
I was surprised when I read those numbers and remember having to re-read the paragraph again. “…infraction that brings 8 hours now would have been punished with 600 hours.” This was the trend in corrections in adult and juvenile systems just 7 years ago. I was amazed at how “behind” we as a corrections community were, but also pleased with how far we have come.
Looking back, I wonder if I would have addressed the issue of seclusion quicker in my facility if I had had valid data that would have given me a better understanding of seclusion hours. In the recent JDAI reporting the finding suggested the following:
“’The revised JDAI Detention Facility Standards prohibit the use of room confinement for discipline, punishment, administrative convenience, retaliation, staffing shortages, or reasons other than as a temporary response to behavior that threatens immediate harm to a youth or others,’a JDAI summary of strategies to eliminate unnecessary use of room confinement states.” -Juvenile Justice Information Exchange
The JDAI recommendations and goals also address the topic of using data to make informed and educated decisions. If I had a RiteTrack system in my facility just two years ago, I wonder if I would have been more progressive in my decision-making because of the quality data and better statistics generated from the solution to help support better-educated decisions. Because not only would I have had up-to-date and valid data for the day, months and year, but I could have been tracking the data more effectively rather than relying on an end-of-the-year report.
I believe that many of my former colleagues share my belief that room confinement is necessary, on a limited basis, especially due to the nature of the work we perform. However, I also believe that directors and administrators want to always balance the safety of the facility without violating the rights of our youth. With a balance of protection and safety of rights in our policies and procedures and implementations, we can achieve the ideal of safely treating and serving troubled youth. The RiteTrack software system can and will assist administrators in creating that balance at their facilities.
Ramsey County, MN Goes Live on RiteTrack Juvenile Justice Facilities Solution
The Ramsey County Community Corrections Department went live on its new RiteTrack Juvenile Justice system in March of 2015. Ramsey County originally partnered with Handel IT after selecting RiteTrack through a competitive bid process in 2014 to replace two separate systems that had managed their juvenile detention facility and residential facility, respectively. The project was begun with aggressive goals not only to combine the two facilities onto one system, but also to analyze business processes and then synthesize them between the two facilities, convert and merge data from the two previously disparate databases, maintain accurate JDAI reporting, and integrate with a data warehouse hosted by the State of Minnesota.
“This project has been a great test of RiteTrack’s powerful security model” says Even Brande, President and CEO of Handel. “It has accomplished one of the key goals of this project which was to reduce duplicate data entry since many of the youth spend time in both facilities at different times. Yet RiteTrack’s security ensures that staff in each facility can only see the data that is pertinent to what happens in that facility, yet shares common data between the two.”
“The outcome of this project has been of great benefit to both my users and myself as a system administrator,” according to Dan Merth, the Customer Project Manager for the software implementation. “We have accomplished all of the goals we had for the initial roll-out of RiteTrack. Two obsolete systems were combined into one intuitive web-based design that is capturing all of the critical client information our case managers need on a daily basis, as well as the high level data our management uses to track trends and focus resources such as staffing levels. The project was completed on time and on budget and I am eager to work with Handel on future customization and enhancements to Ramsey County’s RiteTrack application.”
Throughout the project, Handel’s standard process for implementation of a software system was utilized. This process began with business and systems analysis and was followed by a formal system design. After the design was officially signed off by both Ramsey County and Handel, customization was added on top of RiteTrack’s standard Juvenile Justice Facilities system. Data migrations and the subsequent data merge from the two legacy systems, report development, and the integration with the State of Minnesota data warehouse all happened in parallel with the software customization.
“Large and complex projects such as the Ramsey system have an incredible number of points where a project can run into problems. Especially when large numbers of tasks are running in parallel to each other the complexity of large enterprise-level systems can almost seem overwhelming. The key to project success is clear communication and synergy between the Project Managers and other key staff members on both sides. Ramsey County is a perfect case study in how software implementations should happen; it has been a huge pleasure working with Dan and his team and I am looking forward to a long and lasting relationship with their office,” said Ben McKay, Handel’s Project Manager for the Ramsey software solution.
“The design and development process went better than any other large scale software project I have been involved in,” said Dan. Handel’s design model includes screen mockups and descriptions of each function to ensure that there are no surprises when development begins. Additionally, Handel’s customer support has been excellent, it is nice to know that Ramsey County Corrections has partnered with a responsible vendor who cares just as much as I do about data and reporting accuracy, system functionality, and customer service.”
Ramsey County is currently pursuing a second phase to their RiteTrack project to add additional functionality to further enhance their ability to serve youth in the juvenile justice system.
“We are very thrilled to having had the opportunity to work with Ramsey County on this project” says Even Brande. “Not only are we looking forward to many years of working with Ramsey County but we also believe this solution will be a model for other communities who are in a similar situation.”
For more information on a selection of the technical processes that were incorporated into the Ramsey project and Handel’s Juvenile Justice Solution please see:
PREA: Tracking Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Personal Identification
One of the core focus areas of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) is the concept that each individual deserves to be protected and that one of the best ways to ensure that is through data collection and management. Handel has built RiteTrack to go beyond simply checking a box to designate a person as a female or male. Included as standard in our juvenile justice software is the ability to track not just a person’s actual gender, but also what they personally identify as and their sexual orientation. All of this information is tracked right on the Face Sheet of a resident in RiteTrack.
PREA requires special protections for intersex and transgender youth in a detention environment. Handel has taken this to heart and has designed, as standard product, functionality to track these data points.
Tracking Gender
There are instances where the labels of female or male simply do not encapsulate the reality of each individual resident. PREA recognized this and has set new requirements for working with intersex residents. RiteTrack has been built to scale to each facility’s unique requirements for tracking the gender of each resident. Below is an example dropdown list with three selection options; female, intersex, and male.
The above image is just to provide an example list of gender options. Each facility may custom design this dropdown list to suit their individual needs with as many options as they desire. What is more, if a facility needs to add an additional option in the future an administrator of the system may add the option through RiteTrack’s Admin Dashboard. The average time it takes to do this is under 30 seconds. This means that RiteTrack users can access very powerful functionality, with high degrees of flexibility, with no system down time.
Tracking Gender Identification
PREA defines transgender as, “A person whose gender identity is different from the person’s assigned gender at birth.” While tracking gender is, and will always be, a necessary requirement for juvenile facilities, that physical gender may not be how the resident personally views him or herself. In order to meet this new requirement, RiteTrack has built out additional functionality to track gender identification separately from a person’s physical gender at birth.
Much like the Gender dropdown box, the Gender Identification list may be altered by a facility to encapsulate as many options as is desired. This list can potentially get quite expansive; Facebook currently has 56 gender options. While a juvenile facility may never need to track that many options RiteTrack has been built to scale to that many, just in case.
Tracking Sexual Orientation
While tracking sexual orientation is not an explicit requirement in PREA, RiteTrack has been built with the philosophy that we don’t stop at just the minimum requirements. In working with juvenile facilities and other juvenile justice departments we have found that a person’s sexual orientation can have a great impact on how the juvenile interacts with other residents, interacts with staff, and experiences their stay at detention or residential facilities. This dropdown box works exactly like the two discussed previously; the list may be custom managed, added to at any time, and provide the flexibility that each facility deserves to have.
Accessing Advanced Functionality
While tracking data points is a great concept and a requirement that must be fulfilled, Handel believes that what we can then do with that data is much more important. Once users have access to a system that goes beyond check boxes that can only track if a resident is a female or a male and they are given the additional power of having more comprehensive gender choices, the ability to track how a person identifies him or herself, and the option to track sexual orientation we can begin to leverage that information to lead to better outcomes and track legislative requirements in a more robust manner.
Examples of this include PREA’s requirements to limit cross gender searches and viewings and to only allow trained staff the ability to search intersex and transgender youth. Once we track these three data points, it is then possible to build immensely powerful business logic off of those pieces of information and we can begin to, as an example, reduce the incidence of disallowed searches. Additionally, those fields can be paired with other modules in RiteTrack, such as Treatment Planning to be able to provide analytics on how gender, gender identification, and sexual orientation can play into that process.
Data can be powerful. Talk to a Handel Sales Representative or Project Manager today about how we can make your data work for you.
To learn more about the PREA requirements discussed in this post please go to the PREA webpage for Juvenile Facility Standards.
Managing Visitation and Calls In Your Facility
Included, as standard functionality, in all RiteTrack Juvenile Justice Facility Management systems is the newly upgraded Visitation Module. This module not only tracks when a resident has a visit or a call from a friend or family member, it will also help prevent unapproved calls or visits from happening. RiteTrack provides this advanced functionality by first mandating that an individual receive approval prior to a visitation or call event. All requests for approval to call and visit are stored in a single location on every admission account to provide a single view for staff members to be able to add, update, and view information for that record. Consolidating this information is intended not only to save time and increase productivity, but also to make it easy for users to quickly determine whether an individual is allowed to have contact with a resident to prevent unapproved visits. Below is a view of our Visitation Approval screen.
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The example above displays a resident who has had two individuals request approval to visit or call during their admission. In addition to tracking names and approval statuses, RiteTrack also tracks the duration of the approval, as well as a comments section to provide users with additional information or alerts about potential visitors or callers. As seen above, Ben, our example resident, only has one person who is allowed to call. RiteTrack uses this information in the Calls screen to filter only those people who are allowed to call the resident.
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The functionality of Visitation Module is to help users screen calls and only allow approved callers to have contact with the resident. Only one caller has the approval to talk to the resident so only that person’s name is able to be selected from the dropdown menu. This functionality is designed to add one additional level of security for contact with a resident. Likewise, all visits a resident receives are tracked ona separate screen. Our example resident has no current approved visitors. As expected, this means that no name is selectable in the dropdown list to help users easily identify that a visit should not be allowed.
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However, if a visitor has been approved and that information needs to updated, RiteTrack accomplishes the change in a matter of seconds. All a user must do is approve the correct person, as seen below.
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And then the visitation record may be added.
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RiteTrack provides advanced functionality without creating a large additional workload for users. Many systems have sacrificed either functionality or ease of use to accomplish the other. Handel has provided a way to achieve both. Users provide above and beyond service for their residents; Handel believes facility management software should provide above and beyond service for users.
OJJDP’s Tribal Youth Training and Technical Assistance Center Offers New Online Course “Developing and Revising Juvenile Codes”
The center’s new course will help individuals develop effective and sustainable programs for reducing juvenile crimes and increasing youth potential in tribal communities.
Natrona County, Wyoming, Embraces Single Point of Entry Model and RiteTrack
Over the past year Handel has been working with Natrona County, Wyoming on implementing RiteTrack for managing juvenile justice cases. This project is a pilot of a potential statewide RiteTrack implementation in Wyoming. Through this project we have learned about the Single Point of Entry model which, by Wyoming State Statue, states that every citation issued to a juvenile within a county of Wyoming shall be provided to the County and Prosecuting Attorney before that citation is filed in any court. This statute provides a “single point of entry” for juveniles. The law went into effect July 2011. However, Natrona County have had a Single Point of Entry model in place since the recommendations first came out in 2009 according to Amy Dorman who is the RiteTrack project manager for Natrona County.
When a resident of Natrona County under the age of 18, or over 18 but still enrolled in high school, is charged with a violation of the law, the county attorney reviews the juvenile and their violation with the single point of entry committee. The committee meets every Wednesday and consists of representatives from the district attorney’s office, Wyoming Department of Family Services, the Natrona County School District, Youth Diversion Program, Natrona County Sheriff’s Office, and the treatment providers. Meetings typically last 60-90 minutes during which on average 10-15 new citations are discussed. Upon a preliminary review of the juvenile and his record, a recommendation is made whether to refer the juvenile to a diversion program. If this preliminary review shows that the juvenile is not suitable for the diversion program, recommendations are made that the citation be filed in a court of jurisdiction within the county.
“RiteTrack is a critical part of the weekly single point of entry meeting” says Dorman. “We hook up a laptop or one of our recently acquired Microsoft Surface tablets to a projector so that all the participants immediately can get the big picture on the client and their family. With all the RiteTrack information at our fingertips and representatives from all the key stakeholders in the room it becomes much easier to assess the right path for each individual youth.”
Dorman believes that having RiteTrack as the central juvenile justice case management software in Natrona County helps reduce errors, expedites processing time, and results in better outcomes for the youth served. “RiteTrack is no longer just at someone’s desk. The other day I was visiting a high school and the principal was asking about a youth. Immediately I was able to pull the data up on our Surface tablet and give the principal the information requested.” Dorman also explains that they use RiteTrack in the courtroom where they can enter adjudications in real-time. The Natrona County Juvenile Detention Center uses RiteTrack to manage all processes from intake through discharge.
“Ultimately, having a single point of entry program along with RiteTrack helps keep more kids out of detention and shorten times for those who are there.” says Dorman.
Minnesota County Secures Path to Improved Data Collection and Reporting Software Solution for Juvenile Facilities
Ramsey County, Minn. has partnered with Handel Information Technologies to implement a RiteTrack juvenile justice software solution to manage its juvenile detention and residential facilities.
The facilities using the powerful, new solution will be the Juvenile Detention Center and the Boys Totem Town.
“RiteTrack is capable of tracking the required data in a juvenile detention environment but also includes all of the functionality that the County’s residential facility needs for case and treatment planning,” said Dan Merth, Project Manager at Ramsey County Corrections Department.
Handel’s project manager said system planning and development is expected to last six-nine months with a flexible implementation timeframe of early 2015. “RiteTrack is designed well for projects where multiple facilities or departments are looking to merge their information sharing needs into one system. Through our proven track record with system design, data migration, and business and systems analysis even complex projects such as Ramsey County’s are launched and implemented quickly.”
RiteTrack will replace multiple systems; a legacy system which was created in an old programming language for the JDC which is no longer supported and a custom-built solution for the treatment facility.
The Mental Health and Juvenile Justice Collaborative for Change Web site says, “Providers rightfully tend to focus on meeting the needs of youth and families, but may fail to recognize the value of data collection and analysis. …In an environment in which demonstrating outcomes is critical, this oversight might be counterproductive.”
“The new RiteTrack system will generate real-time reports and notifications for case workers, administrators and stakeholders. The data collection and reporting capabilities will give the County high-quality information to produce client outcome information,” said Handel’s President Even Brande.
Ramsey County’s juvenile services provide “a structured and positive environment for the development of responsible youth with assistance from community partnerships and services within [the] County.”
RiteTrack, a Web-based juvenile justice software solution, tracks everything in juvenile diversion, detention, corrections and treatment cases from client demographics to treatment plans. This solution is designed to be the single point-of-entry into juvenile-serving agencies. As a youth enters a system, client information is entered into only one place.
Handel creates RiteTrack, a software solution used by juvenile service programs in state and county governments.
Natrona County DA and Juvenile Detention Center Implements New RiteTrack Solution
Handel implemented a new RiteTrack system for the Natrona County Juvenile Detention Center on May 13.
The newly implemented, juvenile detention case management solution contains functionality for case management, document management, case notes and a wide variety of reporting features. The RiteTrack system replaced the center’s previous paper-based tracking system.
In Natrona County various organizations work together to provide juveniles in need with services. These include community groups, the school district, district attorney’s office, Wyoming Department of Family Services, Department of Corrections, Sheriff’s Office, City of Casper Police, and the Juvenile Detention Center.
The local Project Manager, Amy Dorman, said “RiteTrack has allowed us to view information on the juvenile as a whole including family history, school history, legal background, jail admissions and any assigned groups. It takes time to assess what is really right for a youth.”
The RiteTrack juvenile module met the vast majority of the JDC’s needs right out of the box without much configuration work.
Handel Project Manager Ben McKay said, “The reporting feature in RiteTrack includes custom reports about daily case loads, client populations, client demographics, censuses and one for an attorney in the District Attorney’s office. The ability to collaborate between the JDC’s and DA’s offices is paramount, because the DA does client intake for the JDC.”
RiteTrack is a software solution used by human services programs throughout state, and county governments. It provides the primary means for caseworkers, administrators, and other professionals to manage clients and caseloads.
Washington County Juvenile Detention Center Discusses Benefits of RiteTrack
The Washington County Juvenile Detention Center, probation office and juvenile court work directly with youth who have been charged or sentenced for violating the law in Washington and Madison counties in Arkansas.
Essential information about offenders and services are often difficult to track on paper or with database software, but in order to distribute services to its facilities and provide rehabilitative programming for its residents, that data needs to be accurate and easily accessible.
The Washington County JDC and probation office found that its old database system and many other industry solutions provided the ability to combine and catalogue information from various paper sources and offered some reporting capabilities. However, the information in the database itself could not be shared between the JDC, the court and the probation office within the juvenile detention system. Meanwhile, the court and probation offices were operating without any software information management system and tracked everything on paper. The old database system also was not effective for repeat offenders because it created a duplicate client record for each repeated offense.
When Washington County began looking for a better software solution, it discovered RiteTrack. This solution provided the centralized database with a key benefit: the capability to share client information between offices without sharing sensitive case information. With RiteTrack the JDC, probation office (including prosecutors and public defenders), and court can all enter a new offender into RiteTrack and the other offices can then access the record of that offender.RiteTrack’s security parameters restrict case data viewing, but allow for client information sharing between departments. Therefore, all updates to the offender’s record made by an office are subsequently updated across all the departments.
Specific functionality of RiteTrack which is used by the probation and court side includes management of:
- Court dockets
- Family In Need of Services (FINS)
- Dependent and neglect
- Meetings and hearings
- Criminal cases
- Private cases
- Interstate compact
The JDC tracks and manages:
- Check-in
- Intake and background
- Room assignment
- Social worker recommendations
- Observations
Now with consistent information for each offender throughout the system, all the offices are experiencing better information. This has increased productivity within each office and case processing has become more efficient as well.
The Washington County JDC is a multi-bed holding facility for both clients who have been sentenced and those waiting to be sentenced, but it also provides fee-based holding services for surrounding Arkansas counties.
Juvenile systems across the country can benefit from a RiteTrack solution. This offering is configured to meet any office or department’s specific information management needs. With better information management, juvenile facilities can offer more efficient services to their clients and can increase record reliability across departments and offices. Handel Information Technologies, the maker of RiteTrack, has 15 years of experience in providing software solutions to the juvenile justice field.
Arkansas Division of Youth Services
The State of Arkansas Division of Youth Services (DYS) is using RiteTrack statewide throughout its operations and to manage a network of its service providers throughout the state. This is a multi-agency deployment of RiteTrack where DYS and its service providers around the state connect into RiteTrack over the internet to enter service, placement, transport and billing data. RiteTrack data resides centrally in DYS’ central office, but via the internet, providers can access from different locations around the state. DYS staff uses RiteTrack primarily to track billing related to its eight service providers, as well as to track the placement of the children it helps. RiteTrack also helps DYS with its incident investigations/reports, interstate travel compacts and more. In addition to the multitude of functionality, much of which was custom built for DYS, part of this project also entailed a significant amount of data conversion from DYS’ prior Juvenile Tracking System into RiteTrack.
RiteTrack Simplifies Information Management in Whatcom County, WA
An Integrated justice information system is the holy grail of information technology for many larger municipalities. Traditionally, counties and cities developed information systems specific to each division. This left information sharing and communication between departments difficult at best.
Before RiteTrack, all case notes were kept on paper by probation officers, all statistics were drawn up by hand. When information was needed, it was only accessible through the individual probation officer. Due to space concerns, when youths were no longer under Whatcom County supervision, files were moved off-site. When youths re-entered the system, requesting and gathering information about them took time and considerable effort.
Whatcom first implemented RiteTrack’s comprehensive information management system in their Juvenile Court Administration to track clients through the court process into detention or other alternative sanctions, and eventually out into the community. For Whatcom County employees, they enter data on juveniles just once and the information follows the youths through the different stages through the legal system. This now not only saves a lot of time, but it integrates the information and allows workers to have a holistic picture of their clients at all times.
Handel’s RiteTrack significantly improves the monitoring of the juveniles in the system by providing a central place for all information relating to a youth to be kept. Legal information, detention information and social information (treatment, school, probation appointments, home visits, etc.) are all kept on RiteTrack where it is instantly accessible to authorized persons. David Reynolds, Juvenile Court Administrator explains, “If I receive a call from a parent relating to a case or probation event, from my desk I can easily access the information relating to the youth. Before we adopted RiteTrack, whenever probation officers needed to provide or obtain information about a youth being detained in our facility, they actually had to physically enter the facility and retrieve the written information, or write the information in the youth’s detention file. Now they can do this from their office without having to leave it. Often times, as well, the Court has us look up information in RiteTrack during court to determine what has been going on with the youth- last time in detention, missed probation appointments, and so on”.
Whatcom County has taken RiteTrack out into the field to the point the on an in-home visit, if probation officers need an arrest warrant, instead of having to leave, get it and come back, officers can notify judges, who can sign the warrant and through RiteTrack’s document manager have it ready on the probation officer’s laptop without worrying whether the youth will be there when they return with the warrant.
As for those statistical reports, according to Reynolds, one report used to take him 30 hours each quarter to compile. Now it takes him less than 30 seconds from start to finish.