During this period, Center staff continued to check in with the five tribal pilot sites currently testing the Tribal RNR tool. The five pilot sites include, Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Southern Ute, Tulalip Tribes, and Muskogee Nation. During the reporting period, the sites piloted and administered the Tribal RNR tool in their various programs. All five pilot sites have submitted enough assessments that the Center began the six-month recidivism waiting period, which began in September of 2024. All sites continued to administer assessments throughout the period, however, only assessments administered before the end of September are being monitored for recidivism analysis purposes. After the six-month recidivism waiting period, which will begin in March Center staff will begin collecting, reviewing, and analyzing data. Therefore, Center staff prepared for the data collection and analysis process with all pilot sites, which will begin during the next reporting period. Center staff also continuing to coordinate spaces for the tool administrators from all pilot sites to gather and discuss their use of the tool and provide feedback on its use.
Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes:
As of this reporting period the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) have administered over 84 assessments to clients. The tool is being administered in the Public Defenders’ office and is being used with most clients. Additionally, CSKT decided to have their mental health staff trained in the use of the Tribal RNR tool to scale up use of the tool in additional settings. Tool administrators preferred using a paper version of the tool, therefore Center staff worked with CSKT staff to assist with inputting the paper assessments into Jotform, the platform that the Tribal RNR tool uses to aggregate assessment data. CSKT staff engaged in leading discussions on the use of the Tribal RNR tool during tool administrator meetings and tool trainings. Additionally, Dr. Desiree Fox, the director of Behavioral Health at CSKT and a consultant on this project, presented about the tribe’s use of the tool at the American Indian Justice Conference in Albuquerque, NM in July. Lastly, Center staff met with CSKT tool administrators to discuss what recidivism data can be collected and to agree on a data collection process.
Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe:
The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe (SRMT) was not able to assess clients for its program in many months, resulting in no new assessment forms being completed, due to continued challenges engaging local judges for program referrals. Center staff met with a partner from the probation department in Franklin County, which was supportive of the Tribe’s programming, to discuss if the tool could be used in the probation setting. The conversation was positive and resulted in an agreement that the pretrial program manager from the SRMT Tribe’s pretrial services department would coordinate with Franklin County’s probation department to identify if any tribal members would be interested in having the tool administered. Since the meeting with the probation department, the SRMT’s tool administrator has been unable to identify tribal members who are interested in taking the assessment. Center staff are scheduling a check in with the Tribe to discuss if other strategies can be considered to increase their use of the tool. As of the end of this reporting period, the SRMT had 3 assessments administered.
Southern Ute Tribe:
As of the end of this reporting period, Southern Ute has administered over 31 assessments. There was a lull in administration of assessments in the previous reporting period due to a change in the prosecutor’s office. Center staff met with the Director of the probation office in May to discuss if there were challenges in the administration of the tool. However, the Director of probation indicated that Southern Ute recently hired a new prosecutor and now clients were being referred to their program again. Since that time there was a notable increase in the number of assessments the tribe was submitting. Center staff recently met with the Director of probation to discuss data collection and identify what types of data would need to be collected for the recidivism analysis. The Director of probation and Center staff identified a process for data collection at the end of the six-month waiting period which ends in March of 2025.
Tulalip Tribes:
During the last reporting period, there were delays in getting the Tulalip probation department up and running with the tool administration process. The Tribe’s probation department experienced staff turnover, which made it difficult for remaining staff to begin rolling out the assessment process. During this reporting period, Center staff held several meetings with the Tribe’s probation office and individuals from the Tribe’s healing to wellness court to troubleshoot strategies for integrating the risk tool in existing practices. During this reporting period, there were several other assessment tools administered; 5 assessments total had been administered by the end of the reporting period. Center staff will be scheduling a meeting with the tool administrators in the next reporting period to begin discussing data collection and analysis as well as cultural vetting.
Muscogee Nation:
Center staff met with Muscogee Nation several times during this reporting period to provide check-ins and to discuss and troubleshoot issues with the use of the assessment tool. During these meetings, Muscogee staff brought up challenges with some of the questions and phrasing of questions they were experiencing during interviewing. These discussions motivated Center staff to highlight their concerns during the next tool administrator’s meeting to collect feedback from all the pilot sites to see if other tribes were experiencing similar issues with the questions. Center staff are also in the process of scheduling a data collection check in with the Muscogee tribe to identify a data collection protocol for the recidivism data. As of the end of this reporting period Muscogee Nation has administered 17 assessment tools.
Data Collection and Analysis:
Center staff began meeting or scheduling meetings with all pilot sites to discuss next steps in the data collection and analysis process. During these meetings, Center staff are identifying what data sources will contain information relevant for recidivism measures and are creating a protocol and timeline for having the pilot sites collect and share that data in a secure, encrypted, and confidential manner, with Center researchers. Center staff are also discussing with all pilot sites data security and are asking if each site would like to sign a formal data use agreement with the Center to explicitly detail how the data would be transferred, stored, and used in a confidential and protected manner. Pilot sites can opt not to have a data use agreement, as the project has Internal Review Board approval, and some pilot sites already have signed a Memorandum of Understanding explicitly laying out the terms of data use and sharing for the project.
In addition to quantitative data collection, Center staff created a timeline and protocol for the qualitative data collection and analysis. The qualitative data will have two components. The first component will be based on interviews and focus groups with tribal tool administrators to get their formal feedback on the use and efficacy of the tool and specific questions. The second component will be a cultural vetting process, and tribes will be asked to identify cultural forums or specific individuals with cultural knowledge to review the tool and provide feedback from a cultural lens on the appropriateness of the tool for their communities. The feedback from these interviews, focus groups, and interviews, will be used in conjunction with the recidivism data and factor analysis of the tool to provide a final version of the tool for public distribution.
Tool Administrators Meeting:
Center staff hosted a virtual meeting on November 22nd for tool administrators from all of the piloting tribes. The meeting focused on updating all the pilot sites on numbers of assessments currently collected and upcoming timeframes. The meeting also acted as a forum for collecting information about what was working well and if there were any issues with administering the tool. The meeting brough forth helpful conversations that identified concerns with the phrasing and approach of several questions or sections in the tool. The conversation was robust and highlighted several possible challenges with specific questions and possible solutions for the continued use of those questions if they are used in the final tool. The tool administrators from the different pilot sites were able to troubleshoot solutions together in real time to improve the use of administration while piloting.
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