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Showing posts from May, 2020

COVID-19 Crisis Highlights Need for Online Presence for Businesses

by James Townsend The COVID-19 pandemic has forced people and businesses to adjust to social distancing with new behaviors.  Many businesses such as retail and restaurants have had their physical locations closed and forced to conduct all their transactions online.  Some of these businesses already had web infrastructure and delivery capabilities in place.  Others scrambled to create new ways to place orders and pay for products and services online. These challenges have underscored the need for flexibility in your web presence.  For those who are active on social media, these platforms have been valuable to share updates on the status of institutions.  Churches have broadcast online with Facebook, and Twitter is a great source for sharing breaking news.  LinkedIn provides similar capabilities for businesses to maintain contact with customers and suppliers.  One of the lessons for bricks and mortar companies may be to develop online alternatives to deliver their products and services

Victim Offender Mediation Tracking

by James Townsend InfoStrat's SAVIN 360 solution provides comprehensive victim notifications for prisons and jails, and that is not all.  The victim and offender data required for victim notification may be used for related solutions, such as victim grants, case work, and more, as part of a wholistic approach to victim offender services. Victim-offender mediation (VOM) or victim-offender dialogue (VOD) is a process that provides interested victims (primarily those of property crimes and minor assaults) the opportunity to meet their offenders in a safe and structured setting. The goal is to hold offenders directly accountable while providing important support and assistance to victims. The non-profit Just Alternatives provides an excellent overview of VOD programs  https://justalternatives.org/research-project-work/vod-guide-to-best-practices/  showing the steady adoption of VOD/VOM by many states over the last 30 years. The approaches taken by states such as Texas, New York, Io

InfoStrat Case Study: Victim Notification for State of Texas

by James Townsend InfoStrat, a division of Serenic, specializes in government software solutions. Some of these solutions are for applications you may not have thought of, such as victim notification.   The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) Victim Services Division provides notifications to victims of crimes and their supporters about changes in offender custody and status.  Business Situation TDCJ called for a state of the art information management system to administer accurate, personalized and timely alerts to keep registrants informed of the Department's offender decisions.  In addition, the system needed to provide easy access to client service information in order to demonstrate the fulfillment of grant funding organization requirements. Solution InfoStrat implemented the SAVIN360 solution based on Microsoft Dynamics 365 (formerly CRM) in conjunction with an integrated portal for alert registration.  TDCJ IVSS uses cloud-based call center services,