Motivational Assistance Program to Initiate Treatment (MAPIT)

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Your Own Reentry System (YOURS!)

Funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, YOURS seeks to better understand the complex issues that community supervision officers face in monitoring compliance with conditions of release and develop strategies to better engage offenders in their own case planning and compliance management. The project augments existing supervision processes and practices while emphasizing offender involvement in and management of their own behavior. ACE! is proud to work with both the Virginia and Maryland Departments of Corrections on this project.

DC-RISES

The goal of this research is to better understand the process that offenders with mental illnesses go through when returning to the DC area from federal prisons. The private, non-profit organization University Legal Services (located in DC) has contracted ACE! to evaluate the SOAR (SSI/SSDI Outreach Access and Recovery) training process as it takes place in local federal facilities. The purpose of the training is to help case workers to better navigate the SSI/SSDI application process and ultimately get returning citizens their federal assistance as soon as they leave custody or as close to that date as possible.

Virginia Department of Corrections

The VA-DOC is moving forward with evidence-based practice (EBP) implementation throughout community corrections. To do so, the VA-DOC team and Center for Advancing Correctional Excellence (ACE!) researchers (Drs. Faye Taxman and Danielle Rudes) conducted several strategic planning sessions to: 1) consider which components of EBP supervision are most important; 2) identify the organizational steps needed to advance EBP implementation; 3) discuss ways of providing a balanced approach to offender supervision across the districts and build the infrastructure to support EBP implementation, and 4) outline an aggressive plan to move all 43 districts forward. At present, ACE! researchers are developing a survey instrument to collect data on organizational readiness for change, organizational culture, knowledge and acceptance of EBPs and the like from VA's community corrections' officers, supervisors and staff. This information will provide a valuable look inside these influential reentry organizations while helping both ACE! and the VA-DOC decide on next steps for EBP implementation and sustainability.

Fairfax Juvenile Probation Project

George Mason University is beginning a research project with the Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court looking at how evidence-based policies (EBPs) are implemented within the agency. The goal is to understand what EBPs are implemented, how well they are implemented and what factors are needed to improve the overall alignment of the EBP into the Court Services Unit (CSU) context to achieve the desired outcomes. The study outcomes will help the local CSU to continue to improve the quality and effectiveness of services. It also provides value to the Department of Juvenile Justice since many state operated court service units have made similar changes and may require similar fidelity assessments.