The holiday season, often associated with celebration and relaxation, presents a unique and demanding challenge for community supervision programs. For community corrections teams, the end-of-year holidays mean high volume, not downtime.
Increased client travel, extended facility closures, and reduced staff availability create a perfect storm that can strain even the most organized agency. Planning ahead isn’t just helpful—it’s essential for maintaining accountability and operational integrity.
The Real Cost of Missed Coverage
When holiday coverage is thin or poorly planned, the consequences can affect staff, clients, and public safety. The real cost of missed coverage includes:
- Data Delays: Alerts go unaddressed or are not reviewed in a timely manner. This can mean violations may go unnoticed, undermining the purpose of electronic monitoring.
- Frustrated Courts: Courts and supervising authorities rely on timely, accurate compliance data. Delays or confusion during the holidays may decrease confidence in monitoring programs, making judicial decisions more difficult.
- Staff Burnout: When employees lack clear schedules or communication, the burden often falls on a few individuals, leading to stress, fatigue, and eventual burnout.
Top-performing programs recognize that avoiding these pitfalls requires a proactive strategy, not just reacting to emergencies.
Three Proactive Habits from Top-Performing Programs
Successful community supervision programs transform the busy holiday period into a manageable operation by building three core habits into their planning:
1. Review Caseloads Early
Leading programs don’t wait until December to assess their monitoring load. They begin a thorough caseload audit prior to the holidays, involving:
- Identifying High-Risk Clients: Pinpointing clients with known histories of holiday violations or those newly placed on monitoring.
- Confirming Contact Information: Ensuring all client emergency contact numbers are current.
- Adjusting Reporting: Temporarily adjusting check-in schedules for low-risk clients to reduce the volume of data that must be reviewed on specific holidays.
2. Communicate Schedules Clearly
Top programs establish holiday staff coverage schedules well in advance, detailing who is responsible for which hours and what their duties entail.
- Pre-Shift Handoffs: Implementing documented handoff protocols near a holiday ensures that all critical alerts and client concerns are acknowledged by the incoming team.
- Single Point of Contact: Clearly communicating a single, designated contact number or method for clients and external agencies to use during non-standard business hours prevents confusion.
3. Assign a “Holiday Lead”
This dedicated person, often a senior officer or supervisor, is responsible for overall coordination and final decision-making during the holiday period.
- Final Approver: The Holiday Lead acts as the final approver for staffing decisions, schedule changes, and addressing major issues that fall outside standard protocol.
- Resource Manager: This individual ensures that all necessary technical resources (like access to monitoring software and communication tools) are available and functional for staff working remotely or on call.
By adopting these proactive habits, leading agencies ensure that their commitment to accountability and public safety remains unwavering, even when the rest of the world is winding down.
Download the Holiday Accountability Toolkit now to access the 5-Step Readiness Framework and boost your team’s efficiency this season.
