Number and percentage of instances where people access court services other than in person and outside normal business hours (e.g. phone, mobile application, online, expanded hours) – (DACC) Downtown Austin Community Court-Client Contacts Through Outreach

Status

The Downtown Austin Community Court (DACC) was established to address quality of life and public order offenses occurring in the downtown Austin area utilizing a restorative justice court model.  DACC’s priority population consists of individuals experiencing homelessness and the program’s main goal is to permanently stabilize individuals experiencing homelessness.  To effectively serve these individuals, DACC created an Intensive Case Management (ICM) Program, which uses a person-centered and housing-focused approach. The ICM Program focuses on rehabilitating and stabilizing individuals using an evidenced-based model of wraparound interventions to help them achieve long-term stability.  Because individuals participating in case management are literally homeless, case managers must actively seek their clients in the community through outreach activities and, often times, work on behalf of the client via collateral engagement with other social service and housing providers.  This measure highlights case management activities accomplished via outreach and collateral engagement.

Trending

The trend for individuals experiencing homelessness who access services other than in person, and instead access services via outreach and collateral engagement, continues to increase since FY18.  This trend is driven by an increase in intensive case managers, an increase in requests for intensive case management services, client needs and client acuity; clients with higher needs and higher acuity require more intensive outreach in order to maintain active communication and engagement. COVID-19 protocols, and a lack of physical space in DACC’s facility, required intensive case managers to focus on engaging clients in the community and outdoors in areas where social distancing could be accomplished.  An increase in outreach activities can be expected since each intensive case manager is now equipped with a City vehicle which is also furnished with hotspots, scanners and printers, to enable case managers to link computers and effectively, and efficiently, work out of vehicles and successfully provide services in the community.  
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Additional Measure Insights

This area is under development.

Measure Details and Definition

1) Definition: This measure captures intensive case management activities accomplished via outreach and collateral engagement.
 2) Calculation method: We calculated this measure by dividing the number of intensive case management activities accomplished via outreach and collateral engagement by the total number of all intensive case management activities      
3) Data Collection Process:  DACC Intensive Case Management Staff collect data for this measure.  This data is entered manually each time an outreach or collateral engagement activity is conducted and completed.  All data is entered in DACC’s Intensive Case Management Checkbox Report.
  4) Measure Target Calculation: The target was calculated using the past three years’ worth of data, which suggested there are approximately 20% of contacts occur where the client does not have to be at the court facility.
 5) Frequency Measure is Reported: Annual (Fiscal Year)
Date page was last updated: April 2023