The National Center for State Courts has made available for download its Implementation Guide for Modernizing Conservatorship Monitoring. The Introduction is as follows:
The National Center for State Courts (NCSC) launched the Conservatorship Accountability Project (CAP) in 2015. From the start, the CAP strove to advance tools to help courts (1) develop and use technology to automate key functions of the conservatorship process; and (2) increase monitoring of specific cases based on analytically derived risk indicators. In other words, CAP is about modernizing a process that is too often under-resourced and neglected in the larger court structure. Originally, this implementation guide was intended to encourage state courts to adopt technologies and analytics that would make immediate impacts. But like many intentions, the NCSC team, working with pilot states, realized that most state courts do not have the capacity to develop and implement such broad-scale changes at this time. In fact, data collection efforts showed that most state courts still have a difficult time documenting the number of active conservatorship cases. So rather than create a guide that few courts could implement, the purpose of this report is to inform readers of the efforts and advancements under way in light of problems posed by conservatorships. Regardless of the current situation within a state, the proposed strategies can be adapted to assist all courts. The project team encourages movement toward reforms that, ultimately, will improve court accountability and enhance protections for those individuals subject to conservatorship. First laying the ground work of stakeholder support and improved data collection, then building toward technology solutions.
