Online Course: Mitigation Mechanics

COURSE DETAILS

Course start/end: June 25 , 2024 – July 30th, 2024

Class small group meeting time

• Tuesdays at 5:00 pm – 6:15 pm ET

Registration Deadline – June 14, 2024
Scholarship Deadline –    June 1, 2024  Apply  here

Price: $500 for NAPD Members.  $650 for Non-Members.

Need help with this registration process?  Watch this video.  

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Mitigation has been called the “heart and soul of just and merciful sentencing.” Mitigation is not only critical for negotiating a lesser sentence or alternative sentence for your client, but it is also important to understand the life, experiences, and needs of the person your team is representing. This six-session course is for new practitioners to mitigation work – new sentencing advocates, mitigation specialists, dispositional advocates, etc. You will learn about the history of mitigation and the mechanics necessary for mitigation development: how to begin mitigation development from the initial client interview, how to look for mitigation themes, request and digest records, how to incorporate system failures into your mitigation work, and finally how to outline your mitigation report and begin to write! This course is geared to brand new mitigation practitioners and is the first of two courses on mitigation, the second being The Critical Examination of Mitigation and Our Role in Uncovering It!

Who This Course is For:

New to the field mitigation specialists, sentencing advocates, dispositional advocates, social workers, and others performing similar functions in defense-based systems. This course provides the fundamental information necessary to begin to perform mitigation.

Course Objectives:

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Have knowledge of the history of mitigation as a practice in defense-based work;
• Learn how to build rapport to meet with clients to learn about their lives and ask questions to develop mitigation with them and on their behalf;
• Request medical and other collateral records related to a client’s history;
• Digest records for use in mitigation;
• Review information in a client’s life, history, and experience that point to system failures; and
• Develop a mitigation report outline.

Faculty:

Stephanne Thornton, Lindsey Sandoval, Kevin Bishop, Michael Moore

Stephanne Cline Thornton is a West Virginia native who has worked in and around criminal defense and mitigation for more than 20 years in Georgia, Colorado, and West Virginia. She is currently the Social Work Training and Resource Coordinator for NAPD, Clinical Director for the West Virginia Judicial and Lawyer Assistance Program, and owner of Transform Legal, a consultancy focused on mitigation, training, and sustainability. As a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker and Master Addiction Counselor, Stephanne focuses on proper assessment for and access to trauma and substance use disorder treatment to ensure the health and well-being of affected individuals. Stephanne is on the Trauma-Informed Care Network Speakers Bureau and uses that platform to call attention to the intersection of secondary traumatic stress and legal practice. She approaches her work with clients, lawyers, social workers, and mitigation specialists through a contextualized mitigation lens.

Kevin Bishop, LCSW has been the Social Worker Coordinator for The Office of the Alternate Defense Counsel, conflict counsel to the Colorado Office of the State Public Defender, since 2016.  Kevin earned his Master’s in Social Work in 2005 from the University of Maryland at Baltimore where he interned and went on to work as a forensic social worker with the Maryland Office of the Public Defender in Baltimore.  He moved to Colorado in 2008 to become the capital mitigation specialist at the Colorado State Office of the Public Defender where he worked on several high-profile capital and complex juvenile homicide cases until 2016.  He and Claire Polini, LCSW are currently building OADC’s social worker and clinical advocate program with 50 independently contracted social workers, clinical advocates, and Master’s level interns serving OADC clients as advocate members of criminal defense teams in Colorado.

Lindsey Sandoval is a licensed clinical social worker who has been practicing social work for seventeen years. She received her Bachelor of social work degree in 2006 and a Master of social work degree in 2014. Lindsey’s experience includes child welfare, respondent parent advocacy, guardian ad litem social work, school social work, and defense-based forensic social work. In August 2014, Lindsey was hired as the first Juvenile Denver Public Defender social worker and helped to create the social work position at the Denver Trial Office. After leaving the Public Defender’s office, Lindsey became a private contract forensic social worker at Sandoval Forensic Social Work Services Inc. Lindsey is also a field instructor and supervising clinical consultant for the Colorado Alternate Defense Counsel contract social workers. Lindsey has done training for the National Association for Public Defense, The Colorado Public Defender’s Office, The Office of Child Representative, Alternate Defense Counsel, and the Juvenile Defender Center. Lindsey is also on the board for Chained Voices, supporting incarcerated adult and juvenile artists throughout Colorado. Lindsey has worked on countless juvenile and adult cases, specializing in direct files and homicides.

Michael Moore has over 20 years of experience as a social worker. Michael was the first Mitigation Investigator hired at the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the District of Maryland.  He was responsible for developing mitigation reports that positively impacted sentencing. He also advocated for clients to get into alternative to incarceration programs and assisted in trial preparation. At the Office of the Federal Public Defender, Michael created the Social Work Internship Program. He was the Field Instructor for the University of Maryland, School of Social Work. He supervised students’ training with the objective of developing a professional competent social worker. Michael served as faculty and conducted training for the Administration Office of the US Courts Defender Services Training Division. He has developed training on the Role and Responsibilities of a Mitigation Specialist/Social Work in a Non-Capital Case. Currently, Michael is the Social Work Supervisor for the Legal Aid Society Criminal Defense Practice in the Bronx. Also, he is a member of the National Association for Public Defense where he co-facilitates a bimonthly discussion group of Social Work Supervisors across the country. Michael received a Bachelor of Arts Degree at Hampton University in May 1994. In June 1998, he received a Master of Social Work Degree at Hunter College – City University of New York.

What to Expect:

Mitigation Mechanics takes place over six (6) weeks with six live (virtual) 75-minute engaging group learning sessions that include a combination of lecture/content presentation and small groups, and asynchronous learning in a state-of-the art online learning platform. The course is in a virtual classroom setting with assignments where faculty provide feedback. At the end of the course participants will have the knowledge, information, and confidence to engage in the initial client meeting, request and digest records, identify system failures, and outline mitigation information in preparation for report writing or collaboration with the defense team.