Views of Community Corrections Supervision and Their Predictors: An Officer and Offender Comparison

Appropriate supervision strategies are the backbone of community corrections. The success of community supervision is dependent upon the attitudes of both officers and offenders. Despite this, research on offenders’ attitudes toward community corrections supervision is surprisingly very limited. The current study investigated attitudes of officers and offenders toward and predictors of four different community supervision strategies based on data collected in Hubei, China, in 2103 and 2016. The study found that among demographics, community variables, and value factor, the mutual trust value factor was the most important predictor of community supervision strategies by both officers and offenders. Additional findings and policy implications are discussed.

The effectiveness of supervision strategies to improve health care provider practices in low- and middle-income countries: secondary analysis of a systematic review

Background Although supervision is a ubiquitous approach to support health programs and improve health care provider (HCP) performance in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), quantitative evidence of its effects is unclear. The objectives of this study are to describe the effect of supervision strategies on HCP practices in LMICs and to identify attributes associated with greater effectiveness of routine supervision. Methods We performed a secondary analysis of data on HCP practice outcomes (e.g., percentage of patients correctly treated) from a systematic review on improving HCP performance. The review included controlled trials and interrupted time series studies. We described distributions of effect sizes (defined as percentage-point [%-point] changes) for each supervision strategy. To identify attributes associated with supervision effectiveness, we performed random-effects linear regression modeling and examined studies that directly compared different approaches of routine supervision. Results We analyzed data from 81 studies from 36 countries. For professional HCPs, such as nurses and physicians, primarily working at health facilities, routine supervision (median improvement when compared to controls: 10.7%-points; IQR: 9.9, 27.9) had similar effects on HCP practices as audit with feedback (median improvement: 10.1%-points; IQR: 6.2, 23.7). Two attributes were associated with greater mean effectiveness of routine supervision (p < 0.10): supervisors received supervision (by 8.8–11.5%-points), and supervisors participated in problem-solving with HCPs (by 14.2–20.8%-points). Training for supervisors and use of a checklist during supervision visits were not associated with effectiveness. The effects of supervision frequency (i.e., number of visits per year) and dose (i.e., the number of supervision visits during a study) were unclear. For lay HCPs, the effect of routine supervision was difficult to characterize because few studies existed, and effectiveness in those studies varied considerably. Evidence quality for all findings was low primarily because many studies had a high risk of bias. Conclusions Although evidence is limited, to promote more effective supervision, our study supports supervising supervisors and having supervisors engage in problem-solving with HCPs. Supervision’s integral role in health systems in LMICs justifies a more deliberate research agenda to identify how to deliver supervision to optimize its effect on HCP practices.

Supervisory alliance as a moderator of the effects of behavioral rehearsal on TF-CBT fidelity: results from a randomized trial of supervision strategies

The present study examined relations between supervisory alliance and fidelity to the trauma narrative component of Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, as well as how supervisory alliance might moderate the effect of behavioral rehearsals (i.e., role plays) on fidelity. Forty-two supervisors and 124clinicians from 28 different community-based mental health offices across Washington State participated.Clinicians were randomized to receive one of two supervision conditions—symptom and fidelity monitoring or symptom and fidelity monitoring with behavioral rehearsal. Supervisory alliance alone did not predict adherence or extensiveness of the trauma narrative. One aspect of alliance, client focus, significantly altered the effect of supervision condition on adherence (p=0.05); however, this effect was only seen in 43.5% of clinicians. A second aspect of alliance, rapport, altered the effect of condition on trauma narrative extensiveness with moderate significance (p=0.09). Future research should investigate strategies to improve supervisory alliance or match supervision strategies to specific supervisor-clinician dyads.

The Relationship of the Strategies and Practices of the School Heads and Master Teachers and Teachers’ Competencies and Skills in the New Normal

Monitoring and supervision are essential practices of the school leaders to determine the various aspects of the school’s performance as well as teacher's competencies. This study aimed to determine the relationship between the monitoring and supervision strategies and practices of School heads and Master teachers and teachers’ competencies and skills in the new normal. The study employed a descriptive-correlational explanatory research design to determine the correlation between the variables. A stratified sampling method was utilized to select the respondents. A total of 385 teachers and 267 school heads and master teachers were the respondents of the study. A survey questionnaire was the primary data gathering instrument. Results of the study show that there is a relationship between the school heads and master teacher's practices and strategies. It also reveals that observance of school heads and master teacher's practices of monitoring and supervision of teachers has a relationship to teachers' competencies and skills. In addition, only staff development influences teachers' competencies and skills. The researcher recommended that the school heads and master teachers may continuously attend professional development activities to further improve some of their strategies and practices in monitoring and supervising teachers and to acquire strategies that are applicable and appropriate to the new normal; the school may offer and conduct activities that may improve and sustain the competencies and skills of teachers especially on the strategies and technology-aided materials and applications that can be used in teaching in distance learning.

Investigating the impact of weakly supervised data on text mining models of publication transparency: a case study on randomized controlled trials

Lack of large quantities of annotated data is a major barrier in developing effective text mining models of biomedical literature. In this study, we explored weak supervision strategies to improve the accuracy of text classification models developed for assessing methodological transparency of randomized controlled trial (RCT) publications. Specifically, we used Snorkel, a framework to programmatically build training sets, and UMLS-EDA, a data augmentation method that leverages a small number of existing examples to generate new training instances, for weak supervision and assessed their effect on a BioBERT-based text classification model proposed for the task in previous work. Performance improvements due to weak supervision were limited and were surpassed by gains from hyperparameter tuning. Our analysis suggests that refinements to the weak supervision strategies to better deal with multi-label case could be beneficial.

Data-Driven Fault Diagnosis for Electric Drives: A Review

The need to manufacture more competitive equipment, together with the emergence of the digital technologies from the so-called Industry 4.0, have changed many paradigms of the industrial sector. Presently, the trend has shifted to massively acquire operational data, which can be processed to extract really valuable information with the help of Machine Learning or Deep Learning techniques. As a result, classical Condition Monitoring methodologies, such as model- and signal-based ones are being overcome by data-driven approaches. Therefore, the current paper provides a review of these data-driven active supervision strategies implemented in electric drives for fault detection and diagnosis (FDD). Hence, first, an overview of the main FDD methods is presented. Then, some basic guidelines to implement the Machine Learning workflow on which most data-driven strategies are based, are explained. In addition, finally, the review of scientific articles related to the topic is provided, together with a discussion which tries to identify the main research gaps and opportunities.

What the COVID-19 Pandemic Teaches About the essential Practices of Community Corrections and Supervision

The COVID-19 pandemic occurred in the midst of a reform movement in probation and parole supervision in the United States. Because social distancing orders created significant disruptions in probation and parole, the pandemic provides an opportunity to explore the innovative ways that probation and parole officers adjusted their supervision strategies with clients. We surveyed probation and parole officers in the United States ( N = 1,054; 65% female, 66% probation) in May–June 2020 about the supervision strategies they used with people on their caseloads before and immediately after the pandemic’s onset. Data indicate that overall rates of contact did not change, but that in-person contacts were replaced with remote communication strategies. Client access to electronic communication platforms, especially video conferencing, facilitated more frequent contact and more reliance on behavioral tactics and treatment-oriented case management approaches in the post-COVID period. Results reveal the potential role for video conferencing as an integral element of probation and parole reform.

The Academic Supervisor of Higher Education Students’ Final Projects: A Gatekeeper of Quality?

The production and presentation for public discussion of an end-of-programme project, thesis or dissertation are unavoidable elements for the conclusion of academic training in study programmes of various levels, namely bachelor’s, master’s and PhD. Although these end-of-programme projects may take on various forms, as well as different levels of demand, supervision in the production of these projects is one of the critical elements for their success. This article aims to analyse the supervision process, examining the supervision strategies that faculty members may mobilise in their role as academic supervisors. To this end, the authors carried out a bibliographic collection, which made it possible to substantiate the proposals set out throughout this piece of research. The results allow concluding that, to be effective and efficient, supervision strategies need to consider, as a basic assumption, that this is a pedagogical relationship, with asymmetric powers between the supervisor(s) and the student(s), in which it is paramount to acknowledge the different duties of each party. Furthermore, this relationship entails the need for flexibility on the part of the supervisor, taking into account both the characteristics of the supervisor and of the work designed and the development of the entire process, which may motivate and involve several supervision strategies in the same supervision over time/process. This whole dynamic takes place in a context where it seems important to (re)think the final product of the academic supervision process. Received: 30 October 2020 / Accepted: 3 December 2020/ Published: 17 January 2021

Rationale and Benefits of Using Play Therapy and Expressive Art Techniques in Supervision

In this chapter, the authors describe creative supervision using play therapy and expressive arts modalities that offer a need driven alternative to the traditional supervisor-driven stage models of supervision. Play therapy and expressive arts supervision strategies are effective at increasing supervisee's awareness of self and others, supporting “out-of-the-box” thinking, opening supervisees' to their own strengths and intuition, and enhancing the supervisory relationship. In an attempt to illustrate the rationale and benefits of using play therapy strategies and expressive arts techniques in supervision, descriptions of various techniques are presented with examples, followed by a discussion on ethical and cultural considerations.