NCJ Number
183510
Date Published
2000
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This booklet describes the role and responsibility of a defender office in guiding its indigent clients to the health and social services they need in order to develop productive lives.
Abstract
This approach to defender client services is called "asset-based management." This approach involves defenders in the assessment of both the client's and community resources relevant to the client's development of a productive life. This strategy for helping clients includes a commitment to becoming involved in the community with neighborhood-based offices that focus on community relations. By making contacts with key community leaders, learning about community resources, and even becoming involved in enhancing community resources, defender offices become better prepared to help courts understand that defender clients can profit from case dispositions that keep the client in touch with community resources that build on the client's assets and provide direction for a constructive life in the community. Further, focusing on community and client assets places a defender office in a stronger position when making funding requests. An asset-based management philosophy encourages funders to rethink the meaning of their giving as an investment in citizens and their communities. The asset-based management approach for defender offices involves training staff and volunteers in this philosophy and in ways to identify client and community assets that will improve the client's chances of developing a life based on his/her and the community's positive assets. Examples are presented of programs throughout the country that use asset-based management. For the two other booklets in this series on defender leadership, see NCJ 183511 and 183512.