Using Agency Administrative Data to Develop Tailored Supervision Guidelines to Reduce Revocations

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Karen graduated from Kent State University with a bachelor’s degree in Corrections in 1990 and has since been in a variety of roles in Ohio and North Carolina. For the past 25 years she has worked in various roles within the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction. In her most recent role as the Evidence Based Practice (EBP) Administrator, Karen oversees the continuous development and implementation of practices and policies to ensure they align with the principles of EBP, to include supervision tools, quality assurance tools for supervisors, officer skill development and EBP trainings. Trainings and special research projects included front line officer training, Motivational Interviewing, case planning, Carey Guides, Behavior Management Systems for Community Supervision and Confinement in Response to Violation facilities, Specialty Mental Health Probation, Medication Assisted Treatment initiatives, NC Predictive Analysis Supervision Efforts and collaboration with MIS to improve automation for documenting outcomes.

Sherri Cook is a 29-year veteran of the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction in the Community Supervision Division. She has served as a probation officer, Chief Probation/Parole Officer and currently as the Judicial District Manager of Community Supervision in Forsyth County. Sherri has worked on numerous initiatives with the Department in the areas of Evidenced Based Practices, such as Carey Guides, behavior response, quality assurance, supervision guidelines and strategies. She is also a General Instructor with specialties in Firearms and Defensive Tactics. She is the Chair of the Forsyth County Reentry Council. She has been instrumental in developing several initiatives in Forsyth County such as Veteran’s Treatment Court, Medicated Assisted Programs and Reentry initiatives. She is currently working on the Governor’s Joint Reentry Initiative 2030 Housing strategic plan committee.

Brian Gates has over 30 years of experience with probation and parole and has worked in multiple districts across the state of NC, starting as a parole officer and eventually moving to the Division Administrator with oversite of 22 counties and 8 judicial districts. Currently, Mr. Gates is the Director of Program Services and is responsible for the oversight and administration of North Carolina Division of Community Supervision’s policy development, technology, training, and programming sections, including the supervision of all specialty caseloads.

Dr. Tonya Van Deinse is a research associate professor in the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Van Deinse and her lab – Health Interventions in the Legal System (HILS Lab) – focus on intervention design, implementation, and evaluation at the interface of behavioral health and legal systems. Dr. Van Deinse started her work in mental health 20 years ago in residential treatment with adults with severe mental illnesses and then later worked in mental health at the systems level (i.e., managed care organization) where she began to focus on people with severe mental illnesses in the criminal legal system. Dr. Van Deinse is the principal investigator and implementation science researcher on a number of research studies and program evaluations. Examples of studies in the legal system include: (1) developing and testing tailored implementation strategies to improve collaboration and coordinator between mental health probation officers and community resource providers, (2) testing clinical case consultation and network building effort to improve implementation of specialized mental health supervision, (3) evaluating an expansion model of a county’s mental health court.