Cúram Software Delivers New Solution for Juvenile Justice Agencies, Earns Endorsement from Leading Research And Child Advocacy Group
Children’s Research Center Calls Cúram for Youth Services ‘Transformational Solution’
Herndon, Va. – March 11, 2009 – Cúram Software, the leading provider of Social Enterprise Management (SEM) software solutions, today announced the release of Cúram for Youth Services, a flexible, comprehensive solution designed for agencies managing youth justice programs and services worldwide. Cúram for Youth Services promotes better outcomes through best practice assessment strategies, comprehensive service planning and a multi-disciplinary, intervention model approach. This holistic solution has earned the approval of independent advocacy group, Children’s Research Center (CRC), a division of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD), as a vehicle for improved service delivery for today’s youth and their families.
As agencies responsible for juvenile or youth justice struggle to meet the challenges associated with increased case loads, reduced funding, and increased pressure to produce better results for at-risk youth, the reliance on antiquated systems and manual processes is further hindering the efforts. Cúram for Youth Services improves agency and case worker effectiveness through comprehensive case management, planning, and client evaluation with a single view of all client information, plans, documents, legal actions, and interactions.
Recent research has proven that youth are fundamentally different than adults, both in terms of level of responsibility and potential for rehabilitation. Recognizing these differences, Cúram Software has launched a new commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software solution that supports both conventional and innovative strategies for supporting youth in conflict with the law. Cúram for Youth Services is specifically designed to improve outcomes for juvenile programs by supporting a comprehensive business model to address prevention, intervention, diversion, placement, treatment, transition and aftercare.
The juvenile justice system promotes a holistic casework approach, taking into account a detailed assessment of the youth's history in order to meet specific needs but critically, traditional solutions do not support this approach. By integrating best practice assessments and decision support technology for caseworkers, Cúram for Youth Services allows agencies to employ comprehensive rehabilitation strategies, optimized treatment planning, and defined client metrics that can lead to improved outcomes. The common goal of improved outcomes led to NCCD/CRC’s support of the solution. “In this solution we see a real potential in the ease of building and using best practice assessments. It is so hard to deliver this component correctly, and this solution is better than anything I’ve seen to date,” Chris Baird, Executive Vice President, NCCD/CRC.
Integral to the solution, Cúram Service Planning™ supports detailed and individualized plans that enable an understanding of the impact of their behavior, promotes acceptance of personal responsibility, and allows caseworkers and other multi-disciplinary team members to work collaboratively to achieve appropriate and sustainable outcomes.
Cúram for Youth Services fully enables a multi-disciplinary approach. In the interest of providing individualized treatment services to a population with diverse treatment needs addressed by multiple disciplines, it is necessary that all entities collaborate on the development of their treatment plans to ensure that they are compatible. Cúram for Youth Services supports collaboration and information sharing across jurisdictions, agencies, courts, law enforcement, family services, and services providers.
“The juvenile justice market has been underserved from a technology perspective for years, leaving caseworkers burdened with manual and disparate business processes,” says Chris Baird, NCCD/CRC. “Cúram Software has finally broken the technology barrier by delivering a full end-to-end solution dedicated to producing better outcomes for at-risk youth. The Cúram for Youth Services solution supports the juvenile justice reform practices that leading research has proven more successful than traditional methods.”
“The success of juvenile justice agencies in reducing recidivism rates is significantly increased by adopting evidence based assessments and multi-disciplinary intervention and service planning models,” said Ronan Rooney, CTO and co-founder, Cúram Software. “With the release of Cúram for Youth Services, there is finally an affordable, state of the art, comprehensive and flexible solution for youth justice organizations that spans the full spectrum of business functions from referral, diversion, placement, assessment, service plans, case management, to parole and aftercare.”