The Monroe County Council has approved three new positions within the county’s judicial system to provide more training to probation officers and improve court system navigation for families going through child services.
Becca Streit, director of community corrections and assistant chief probation officer, announced to the council on Tuesday that the department has been awarded $1.5 million in grant funds by the Indiana Department of Correction for 2022. According to Streit, this is an increase of more than $170,000 from last year’s grant awards.
The funding is intended to go toward the community corrections program, pretrial services, drug treatment court and mental health court.
“With this increase, we were able to not only continue to fund existing positions, but we were also able to apply more funding from the grant to staff salaries and benefits to relieve some of the burden off of the community corrections user fees,” Streit said.
The grant will also fund a new position, an evidence-based practices coordinator.
“Gone are the days of probation where clients come in for a five or 10 minute appointment and we go through a checklist of conditions,” Streit said. “Now we have really embedded ourselves in this mission of evidence-based practices and all staff have the responsibility of helping clients make meaningful behavior change everywhere from our receptionist to our probation officers and our supervisors.”
The grant will also fund a new position, an evidence-based practices coordinator.
“Gone are the days of probation where clients come in for a five or 10 minute appointment and we go through a checklist of conditions,” Streit said. “Now we have really embedded ourselves in this mission of evidence-based practices and all staff have the responsibility of helping clients make meaningful behavior change everywhere from our receptionist to our probation officers and our supervisors.”
According to Streit, Monroe County probation officers undergo rigorous training of “evidence-based practices.” These include cognitive behavioral interventions and motivational interviewing.
“We know from experience that these skills just can’t be mastered if we only train and then do no follow up,” Streit said.
The evidence-based practices coordinator will provide ongoing training and mentorship with feedback for departmental personnel.
Streit said the position is funded through the community corrections grant and will benefit the entire probation department.
Council member Geoff McKim said this funding is extremely important for the county.
“We all agree how important it is for us to keep people out of jail. This is one of the big things that we do to keep people out of jail. It’s this series of programs that are represented by (and) funded by this grant right here,” McKim said.
He said he was glad to hear the department would be less dependent on user fees, noting he would still like to see a dramatic reduction of those costs.
Later in the meeting, the county also approved two investigator positions to specifically help families navigate through the court system in youth and parent oriented cases.
This is part of a pilot program by the Indiana Public Defender Commission and will be funded exclusively by the state. This funding will cover expenses such as salaries, equipment and payroll tax.
Derrick Mason, the state commission’s director and chief counsel, said the state Legislature approved $2 million in funding per year for the next two years for at-risk youth and families. Mason said the commission is interested in using this funding for “system navigators.”
According to Mason, there are many families who do not know how to interact with the Department of Child Services and all the other service entities during cases such as termination of parental rights and children in needs of services.
“Lawyers, although they abide by our standards on training to be a lawyer, they do not have that experience to go to a Child (and) Family Team meeting or go and watch and supervise a service provider visit and know what’s supposed to happen or to even advise a client on what a particular service might detail in quite the same level that someone else can,” Mason said.
These families need someone that they can trust who can assist them in navigating through the court system in these ways, according to Mason.
“The public defense side has a unique opportunity to really impact parents and families,” Mason said.
Throughout the two-year pilot program, officials will collect data that intends to measure its efficiency and impact.
“What we would love to see is if this makes market returns as similar positions have in other jurisdictions across the country. If this makes good positive returns for families where children are returned home sooner, cases last less long, they’re not lasting so long, maybe children are prevented from ever being removed if they start in home —things like that,” Mason said.
If the data shows benefits, the positions could be extended and rolled out in other jurisdictions, according to Mason.
Jim Shelton, a court appointed special advocate, spoke during public comments to urge county council members to vote in favor of the proposal.
“This is very exciting. It addresses a big, big need,” Shelton said.
According to Shelton, public defenders are often overtaxed with several cases on their plate at one time. Because of this, it can be difficult for clients to receive a defender’s full attention. A system navigator can help promote that relationship between court personnel and the client.