San Diego County Probation Department Leadership Academy

About the Program

Category: Criminal Justice and Public Safety (Best in Category)

Year: 2011

The San Diego County Probation Department developed and implemented the probation Leadership Academy in order to empower supervisors and managers to improve service delivery and reduce recidivism among adult probationers. The primary objective of the academy is to prepare managers and supervisors to implement evidence-based programs (EBP) and supervision techniques to adult felony probationers while increasing leadership skills. The Leadership Academy is an important step in changing organizational culture so that all policies and practices within the department are aimed at reducing the rate of recidivism among adult probationers. The leadership academy will improve leadership skills, increase motivation to implement EBP, increase the use of performance measures and the ability to evaluate fidelity to a model. The leadership academy will train fifty managers over a one year period. Probation staff has overseen the development and implementation of the academy, with a Probation project manager overseeing the training contract with The University of California, San Diego’s School of Medicine’s Center for Criminality and Addiction Research Training and Applications (CCARTA).