The Chief asked to table this item until the November Commission meeting.
Side discussion: scheduling the Nov Commission meeting to other than the day before Thanksgiving, possibly the week before (Nov. 17).
b Update by the American Justice Institute and Crime and Justice Research Institute, on the implementation of the Program Development Evaluation System (ProDES)
Chief Williams reported that the Department held a meeting with the Executive Steering Committee regarding the progress to date, and providers to get their feedback on things. Another discussion will take place Friday at the regular providers meeting.
Deborah Alvarez-Rodriguez of the Dept of Children, Youth and Families, offered various resources through her office.
Dr. Trish Oberweiss passed out a document and explained what it showed. She further reported that they have had discussions with the Intensive Home Based Supervision programs (IHBS), and a summary report of that is available. The TANF programs have been interviewed and a report will be done on that, and a 3rd group, the non IHBS programs will be next to be interviewed. She will look into what YGC's MIS has in place and will go to Philadelphia to look at the ProDES operations there (this will take the next few months). Some of the issues coming out in the initial inspections are how to deal with the difference between adjudicated and non adjudicated youth, since there are different needs between them.
Dr. Harris said that already they know the program needing to be instituted here is different than the one in Philadelphia. There are different informational needs for SF vs Philadelphia so that the final product is not the ProDES program, but something else (so it should utilize a different name than ProDES).
Some major differences. ProDES is not designed as a case management support service. Population demographics are different between SF and Philadelphia. There are different indicators that are showing up also. In SF interpersonal communications is showing strongly (between peers, youth vs school, youth vs parents) -anger management, strong interaction with peers, as reported by service providers. The cultural complexity of SF exceeds that of Philadelphia, so the interpretation of the information will have to be sensitive to that.
Comm. Dupré reported that he met with the Community Substance Abuse Services of SF and they are excited about talking to the Chief about partnering with the Department.
Comm. Hale asked about inclusion of information regarding the quantity and quality of contacts with parents and families. Ans: there are only quantitative inferences, no qualitative references. There are some consumer satisfaction surveys done and information from those is cycled back to different interested parties.
The Chief mentioned that this new system will have to be able to provide information not just about the youth in the system, but about the victims, and the community also, if the Department is going to be able to see how the impact of Balanced and Restorative Justice plays out in the future. The Chief said that there should be some results available in yr 2001-2 and 2002-3 that prove the programs are working, which will be needed when TANF funding comes to an end and there needs to be replacement funds found.
Comm. Julian asked if the parents interviewed by the program are representative of the total parent pool. Yes.