In-House Academy Custom Trains Colorado Parole Officers

Kanan, Mary, Corrections Today

With state governments facing severe budget reductions and hiring freezes, can a handful of people within a large correctional department make an organizational change in an effort to transform offenders on parole?

Starting with a mission and mandate from Gov. Bill Ritter to cut prison populations through reduced recidivism, the Colorado Department of Corrections' Division of Adult Parole, Community Corrections and Youthful Offender System (APCCYOS) is investing what it has in abundance: intellectual capital. Colorado has created a promising professional development strategy that places parole officers with combined training in evidence-based practices and parole strategies and procedures on the front lines of Gov. Ritter's challenge. New community parole officers do not arrive already fluent in motivational interviewing and other evidence-based practices. Instead, new officers are trained and developed at the Kathleen Recla Academy, the only dedicated parole-specific academy in the nation within a department of corrections setting.

The year 2008 was busy for CDOC. The department received ACA's Gold Eagle Award for achieving full accreditation. At the same time it began strategically employing reentry concepts and integrating evidence-based practices to more effectively work toward reduced recidivism. The department and the division are encouraging and supporting dialogue between management and line staff in an effort to foster a lifelong learning approach to leadership. It offers communication tools such as motivational interviewing, and other evidence-based practices successfully in use in other sectors, and moves to apply them to the habilitation of offenders. The Kathleen Recla Academy, part of the ProfessionalDevelopment @RECLA group, is a productive part of this collaborative process.

Training Academy

Formed in the summer of 2007 with the support of CDOC Executive Director Aristedes Zavaras and APCCYOS Director Jeaneene Miller, the …

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Publication information: Article title: In-House Academy Custom Trains Colorado Parole Officers. Contributors: Kanan, Mary - Author. Magazine title: Corrections Today. Volume: 72. Issue: 1 Publication date: February 2010. Page number: 72+. © 2009 American Correctional Association, Inc. COPYRIGHT 2010 Gale Group.

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