Carbon County is using a $41,450 grant to train probation officers and jail staff to help address drug and crime issues.

Last week, the county commissioners approved the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency grant for the implementation of a risk and needs assessment project to support training of adult probation and correctional staff, as well as implement the Ohio Risk Assessment System.Richmond Parsons, chief adult probation officer, said that the county will hold a two-day end user training in the Ohio Risk Assessment System for the probation and prison staff at the end of March."It will train our staff on how to use this assessment," Parsons said. "What it does, it allows us to more properly target our limited resources toward those higher and medium moderate risk offenders so we can more properly address their needs, especially when we talk about the drug issues, the crime issues and so forth and try to target those resources toward that."The grant will also cover holding a "Train the Trainer" course for the assessment for Parsons' staff and jail officials in June."What that course will do is train some of the staff so they can actually teach that end user training," he said. "The most important aspect of that is sustainability. A lot of times you get these grants and then you're done with the money and you can't do anything further with it."This allows us sustainability moving forward so we can continue training staff at the jail and staff in my department."In addition to the two trainings, the grant will also cover enhancing the integration between the net risk assessment and the county's automated system for the offender data management database."The goal there is to find ways we can accurately reduce the workload and make it so that the two systems work together to create a good supervision plan," Parsons said. "The reality is we all have limited resources and how it is going to benefit the county is we're going to really target our limited resources and try to really address those individuals who are the highest risk and really address the drug issues, really address the crime issues that are affecting Carbon County."The Carbon County Adult Probation office has 14 staffers, including Parsons, two full-time support staff and one part-time support staff, and 10 probation officers.In a related matter, the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole awarded Carbon County $64,889 in grant-in-aid continuing program funds.Parsons said the state reimburses counties a portion of staffing costs if they remain in compliance.