Continuing to motivate positive change and improve outcomes for people on community supervision requires ongoing assessments of and updates to our strategies as probation and parole professionals.

After thorough review and discussion, we are pleased to release the most recent Addendum to the County Chief Adult Probation and Parole Officers Association of Pennsylvania’s strategic plan for advancing Pennsylvania’s adult probation and parole system. The Evidence-Based Practices Strategic Plan 2023–2025 highlights five (5) goals:

• Implementation: Provide tools to steer counties’ evidence-based practices (EBP) implementation efforts. Deployed in four phases, evaluation and ideas for improvements will be an integral part of the new plan.
• Training: Develop statewide training with e-learning, train-the-trainer, and quality assurance features. A training network will be established to sustain skills and to monitor quality assurance.
• Effective Interventions: Support counties in identifying and implementing effective interventions to reduce risk and enhance community well-being. Resources will include training on a standardized case-planning process, a manual for improving fidelity, and a coaching toolkit.
• Communications: Enhance people’s understanding and utilization of evidence-based practices. Increase public awareness and understanding of EBP by sharing success stories, using people-first language in materials and conversations, and enhancing presence in public-facing events and media.
• Data and Quality Assurance: Collect and use data to inform and strengthen practices and ensure evidence-based practices fidelity. Training, a white paper to highlight problems and solutions, and a statewide data collection plan are core to this goal.

The 2023–2025 strategic plan details the objectives and activities necessary to meet the above goals as well as outlines the organizational structure.

The original strategic plan, resolution, and previous addendum are available online:

• Evidence-Based Practices Strategic Plan 2016-2018
• County Chief Adult Probation and Parole Officers Association of Pennsylvania (CCAPPOAP) Resolution (12/7/2018)
• Addendum to the CCAPPOAP Evidence-Based Practices Strategic Plan 2021–2023

 EBP Spotlight: Indiana and York Counties 

Implementing new evidence-based practices (EBP) motivates positive change and outcomes but can present questions and challenges for any jurisdiction. For small jurisdictions, challenges are typically specific to limited resources such as staffing, funding, and programming. Conversely, large jurisdictions often experience challenges caused by complex processes and systems, large staffing numbers, and significant implementation costs.

Indiana and York counties share details about their implementation accomplishments and the outcomes realized in a very short period of time in EBP Spotlight: Indiana and York.

By focusing on caseload numbers and a field-based model of intervention, Indiana County saw significant improvements. York County began implementing evidence-based practices in 2016 and in addition to experiencing improvements, they’ve actualized more than $3 million in cost savings.

Next month:  The September newsletter will celebrate our successes over the last year. We look forward to sharing our many accomplishments with you. 

Positive change is possible for everyone in Pennsylvania. We look forward to continuing to enhance your EBP knowledge and invite you to submit education/resource requests to askppcji@gmail.com.