Standards Review

As I mentioned, there were a few areas in the Accreditation Standards that were fine-tuned when we were doing Maine. Most often, the existing language was either unclear, too verbose, or was not appropriate for want was being asked. I will send a marked up copy to everyone via email. tThe marked up copy with the changes on it address the following standards: 1.07 1.09 2.01 2.08 3.02 Additionally there are a few items in the Auditors' Manual that should be looked at or changed pg. 8 Audit Assignment - was meant to ensure to the audit team that there will be a fair distribution of assignments. If you think that language is needed to better enforce that, it should be enhanced. pg. 16 - Discretionary Compliance There was one important issue that will become a sticking point on audits and it did in Maine. If a program is coming into compliance with a mandatory standard, but through no fault of their own is not able to achieve the "letter of the law" but is in fact following the standard, Can a "Plan of Action" be written and submitted for the program to achieve the full standard within the three-year accreditation period. So in the case of Maine: they have been using a risk assessment validated for another jurisdiction, and they are attempting to get it validated for their jurisdiction, but need expected buy-in over the next two years. Can the Action Plan be accepted? This would only be good for one mandatory standard, and would give the program needed backup to get funds more quickly for the validated program. If it were not achieved by the next re-accreditation, they would lose accreditation status. The key point is that they are basically "there" with respect to standard compliance. Pg. 24 - Monitoring Visits Once a program gets accredited, we had spoken about a yearly form (probably multi-page) that would be filled out to address compliance with the standards and report on any occurrences that might have impacted on programs. This was not developed. Peter

Initial Committee Phone Call 9/6/13

 Don TRAPP <don.trapp@multco.us>, Jeff Kilpatrick <jhk@alachuacounty.us>, "Maldonado, Liza" <LMaldonado@ca.cjis20.org>, "Shawn P. LaGrega" <shawn.lagrega@mainepretrial.org>, Peter Kiers <pkiers@nycja.org>, Kristeen McKenzie <kristymac53@gmail.com>
Hello all:

Thanks for a great meeting this morning. As we talked about, this e-mail is the start of a log that we will be keeping regarding the CT accreditation process. As Peter mentioned, he will get this into a format with password access to committee members. Since we will need to give a detailed report to the Board on the CT experience, including what we think it will realistically cost to do these accreditations, and to list all unanticipated issues and challenges, it is important that we keep a good record. I am also attaching the three main documents relating the accreditation process: the Standards, the manual that is provided to the site to guide their participation in the accreditation process, and the manual that the auditors will use when conducting audits. Another part of what we need to be recording is any suggested changes to these documents based upon our experiences in Connecticut. Also, since we do not yet have the infrastructure described in these materials (i.e., an Accreditation Office, with paid staff), the committee is acting as the office staff. We are going to have to be able to tell the Board what size of staff and level of expertise would be needed for an Accreditation Office. We understand that the Board is making no commitment on continuing with accreditation past CT, but we need to make sure that they can make their decision based on the best information.

So let's start off our log with a summary of our discussions this morning.

Date: 9/6/13 Log Entry By: John

We expect that the contract between CT and NAPSA will be executed in the next few days. Once it is executed, Connecticut will move from Stage 1, the Applicant Stage, to Stage 2, the Correspondent Stage. At that point, they are required to designate an Accreditation Coordinator. That coordinator is responsible for several tasks during this stage, including: conducting an orientation for the entire staff on the accreditation process; developing a work plan for providing the necessary documentation, and then pulling those materials together, conducting a self-evaluation, and then submitting the self-evaluation and supporting materials to the committee for review.

Our responsibility during this stage is to assign an Accreditation Specialist, who will be the point of contact with the Accreditation Coordinator and will answer any questions and provide assistance in pulling together the necessary materials. Peter volunteered to take on this role and Shawn volunteered to assist him. They will both be recording the time and effort involved in performing these duties.

Once the site has completed and submitted the Self-Evaluation and supporting materials to the committee, we will divide the review work into four sections: one for each of the four sections of the Accreditation Standards, with at least two committee members reviewing each section. If one or both committee members reviewing a particular standard section feel that there may be deficiencies in the material presented, the deficiencies will be presented to the full committee. If the committee agrees that there are deficiencies that must be addressed before the site can advance to Stage 3, the Audit Visit, we will give them an opportunity to respond to our concerns. No audit team site visit will be scheduled until the committee is confident that they have all the right materials together, and that those materials, at least on paper, support compliance with the standards.

As for Stage 3, the Audit Team visit, we have discussed the need to visit all of the offices out of which pretrial services is run in CT to verify that each office is following the standards. But not all Standards need to be verified through in person visits to each office. So each committee member will be reviewing the Standards independently and identify which ones that member believes requires a personal visit. The members will submit their thoughts on this within the next month - at which time we will see where the areas of consensus and disagreement are. While we understand the need to visit each office, we want to make sure that we are doing so in an efficient manner.

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John Clark
Pretrial Justice Institute
1101 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Suite 600
Washington, DC 20004
202-841-3179