Intensive Session: Success Planning: A Playbook for Coaches (Not Referees)

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Rachel Goldstein is a Senior Associate at JSP. She has 14 years of experience in the community corrections space. She has dedicated her career to collaboratively building a more equitable, just criminal legal system. She spent a year serving her country as an AmeriCorps member with the Rochester Police Department, where she advocated and stood alongside survivors of crime through the court process. After her year of service, she began her government career as a probation officer working at the county and federal level. She found her niche learning and incorporating core correctional practices and principles of effective intervention into her daily work with people on supervision. She became a Staff Aimed at Reducing Rearrest (STARR) coach and a national coach for the Criminogenic Needs and Violence Curriculum (CNVC), a manualized curriculum that creates a common language and set of materials for the officer, person on supervision, their support network and treatment providers. Rachel transitioned into a probation administrator role at the Administrative Office of the United States Courts where she began to tackle how to address the segmented evidence-based programming and training into a comprehensive approach that defines what it means to do community supervision work well. This is where she was introduced to Implementation Science! Rachel immersed herself in implementation work within the government, in addition to legislative implementation efforts at REFORM Alliance, an advocacy agency focused on transforming probation and parole. She sees implementation as the foundation to ensure that agencies have the needed infrastructure and capacity to support change. She is a proud member of the Global Implementation Society and the American Probation and Parole Association. She completed a Certificate Program in Implementation Practice through the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Social Work. Rachel obtained a Master of Public Administration from the University of Illinois and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Knox College.

Dr. Lovins earned his PhD in Criminology from the University of Cincinnati. He is currently president-elect for the American Probation and Parole Association (APPA). Prior to JSP, Dr. Lovins worked for Harris County CSCD as the assistant director. He was tasked with developing and implementing agency wide change plans to drive increased successful completion rates. In addition, he was the associate director for the University of Cincinnati's Corrections Institute, the School of Criminal Justice's training and research department. He has developed a state-wide juvenile risk assessment (Ohio Youth Assessment System: OYAS) and adult risk assessment (Ohio Risk Assessment System: ORAS), as well as validation of a series of pretrial risk assessments. Dr. Lovins has been invited to present to over 200 agencies and routinely delivers trainings on the principles of effective intervention, risk assessment, and the delivery of cognitive-behavioral interventions.

Shannon Magnuson, PhD, (she/her) is a Senior Associate with Justice System Partners (JSP). Shannon earned her PhD in Criminology, Law and Society from George Mason University. Shannon has ten years of experience conducting meaningful rigorous research; providing evidence-informed technical assistance to local, state, and federal agencies; and, developing creative and research-based training curriculum for practitioners. Her work is dedicated to researching and implementing evidence-informed and culturally responsive policies and practices in legal systems. Shannon has three generations of incarceration in her family and uses this as inspiration to center the humane and dignified care of people who have contact with the legal system. Shannon’s work has appeared in Perspectives, Justice Quarterly, Race and Justice, Punishment & Society, and Law & Society Review.

Dr. Tameka Vaught Williams is a Senior Associate for Justice System Partners. She has over 15 years of experience working in higher education and the criminal and juvenile systems. Tameka began her career as an adult probation officer and later transitioned to a juvenile court counselor. In both positions, she provided high-quality case management and oversight to court-involved adults and youth. Later in her career, she shifted to the quality assurance aspect of public safety and was responsible for implementing, supervising, and evaluating community and evidence-based programs. Before joining JSP, Tameka was a Clinical Assistant Professor at North Carolina Central University. In this role, she taught numerous criminal justice courses and served as the Director of Student Support. She is well-versed in curriculum development, student coaching, and delivering instruction in both online and face-to-face modalities. During her tenure at NCCU, she founded J.E.W.E.L.S., a gender-specific non-profit organization that develops the next generation of women leaders in criminal and social justice fields. Tameka is a two-time alumna of North Carolina Central University (NCCU). She was awarded dual bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and Criminal Justice and a Master of Science in Criminal Justice. She received her Ph.D. in Leadership Studies from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. Tameka’s written work and research interests focus on student professional development, correctional managers’ leadership development, barbershops and beauty salons as community anchors, the criminalization of minority youth, and the barriers to leadership for Black women in the workplace. Her life’s work focuses on making systemic and structural changes in the criminal justice system through leadership, advocacy, research, and teaching.