Case Study: District of Columbia Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services

District of Columbia, Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services

Juvenile Case Management System: Youth Empowerment System (dyrsYES!) March 2007 to December 2007

The District of Columbia’s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS) is responsible for developing, managing, and delivering District-wide delinquency prevention and control services that contribute to the protection of the community and the rehabilitation of young people. For nearly 20 years, DC has been under Court-ordered consent decree to improve the conditions of confinement and services for court-involved youths. Beginning in 2005, DYRS initiated an ambitious transformation program to fundamentally change the philosophy about how to improve the prospects of youth in trouble with a new code of values. To support this initiative, DYRS sought a juvenile justice case management information system that would reflect and promote the new values of the agency.

PCG Human Services partnered with Harmony Information Systems (Harmony IS) to design and implement a new Juvenile Case Management System (JCMS), now called the Youth Empowerment System (dyrsYES!). The JCMS information system was intended to both support and advance agency transformation, particularly by providing enhanced community-services tracking, greater access to youth information by improving role-specific security privileges, and by providing programmatic outcomes reporting. This web-based application comprehensively documents and tracks all DYRS youth case records, including individualized service plans, clinical and social assessments, legal documents, placements, and service providers. YES! also includes several novel functions, such as supporting a “token-economy” rewards system for the youth and incident management. The system also has user-friendly system administration tools, allowing for quick configuration and turnover of maintenance activities to the client.

PCG Human Services worked collaboratively with DYRS to validate system requirements, including heavy engagement from the DYRS end-user community. PCG Human Services also recruited DYRS employees to act as “champions” for the system, who then assisted with design, testing and rollout. PCG Human Services conducted a detailed review of DYRS business and developed a blueprint for how the JCMS would be configured, with screen designs, printable merge documents, tickler reminders, and workflow wizard items to replicate the business process, along with security profiles for users. PCG Human Services led implementation activities, including testing, training and on-site support for the initial Go-Live.

YES! went live on December 14, 2007. Acceptance of the system has been strong and the DYRS project team has been responsive in making further enhancements to YES! where necessary. The new product is now an efficient, Web-based system capable of tracking all DYRS youth case records, with the ability to evolve alongside the growing DYRS agency.

dyrsYES! Functionality

• Intake & Assessment
• Court & Legal Tracking
• Incident Management
• Case Management
• Facility Placement Management
• Token Economy Management
• Provider Management
• Reports