Comprehensive Case Management Training

The Prisoner Reentry Initiative (PRI) is designed to provide funding to state units of government to develop and implement institutional and community corrections-based offender reentry programs. The PRI strengthens urban communities characterized by large numbers of returning offenders. The PRI is designed to reduce recidivism by helping returning offenders find work and assess other critical services in their communities. The PRI supports strategies to deliver pre- and post-release assessments and services, and to develop transition plans in collaboration with other justice and community-based agencies and providers for supervised and non-supervised offenders.

The Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC) will use their Fiscal Year 2007 PRI award to pay salary and benefit costs for new staff positions and purchase laptop computers. The positions will provide comprehensive case management training to KDOC personnel, volunteers and community/service partners. The training will be delivered to KDOC personnel in correctional facilities, parole, community corrections, and mental health and substance abuse service provider agencies. The new positions to be filled are: two general skills developers to assist the lead skills developer in delivering case management training to KDOC staff in correctional facilities, reentry, and parole programs; one mental health/substance abuse cross-trainer to deliver cross-training state-wide to corrections and mental health/substance abuse treatment sectors that work with offenders; and one community corrections skills developer/planner to act as a liaison between the state-wide reentry project and local community corrections operations. The main objective of this project is to provide systematic training in case management to personnel dealing with offenders in facilities, during the reentry process and in community corrections. Data will be gathered and analyzed by specialized staff that will develop a comprehensive evaluation plan in partnership with the Kansas Sentencing Commission, a state university, and a national evaluator. The new data system will evaluate services being delivered to each individual offender participating in reentry programs and provide conclusions and recommendations for areas of improvement.

CA/NCF