On May 15, 2012 the Clark County Probation Department became the 23rd probation department in the state to begin using the Supervision component of the Odyssey Case Management System. Clark County is using separate Supervision modules for their probation cases, court alcohol and drug clients, drug court supervisions, and home detention clients. In just four weeks, the Clark County Probation Department has entered over 2,600 cases into Odyssey Supervision.
The Clark County Probation Department was recently consolidated into one agency from four separate probation departments, effective January 1, 2012. The implementation of Odyssey Supervision has encouraged a more unified operation and has helped streamline many business processes. The four prior probation departments (now referred to as divisions) each had separate case management systems that were not shared with any of the other divisions, causing each division to still operate independently of one another. By implementing Odyssey Supervision, all staff in each of the four divisions will have one single case management system and will have access to the same information.
Henry Ford, the Chief Probation Officer in Clark County, commented during the first week of the Odyssey Supervision implementation that “[JTAC’s] work here in Clark County is going to allow us to eliminate four separate probation systems at an eventual savings of almost $50,000 annually to the county. Our Vision in Clark County Probation is to be the ‘model of excellence for probation and community corrections in the State of Indiana’. Our Mission is to ‘improve the protection of the community, safety of staff, and the accountability of offenders’. And a key way we are going to accomplish these is through implementation of research driven intervention services and by providing training to enhance our professional skills. Odyssey Probation will take us a long way down the path of meeting these objectives.”
JTAC thanks Mr. Ford for his superior leadership and the Clark County Probation staff for their hard work and dedication toward making the transition to Odyssey Supervision such a success. JTAC will continue to provide support and further training in Clark County as the probation department works toward collecting payments in Odyssey Supervision in the coming months.
