To: Board of Supervisors
From: Ellen McDonnell, Public Defender
Report Title: Second Amendment to Professional Services Agreement with Poling Equity (PE)
?Recommendation of the County Administrator ? Recommendation of Board Committee
RECOMMENDATIONS:
RATIFY the Public Defender's execution of a Professional Services Agreement dated June 8, 2023 and the execution of the First Amendment to the Professional Services Agreement dated January 31, 2025 with Policing Equity (PE) for non-personally identifiable data collection services and qualitative analysis of social determinants from volunteer clients, and
APPROVE and AUTHORIZE the Public Defender, or designee, to execute the Second Amendment to the Professional Services Agreement with Policing Equity, for a 12-month period ending no later than January 31, 2027, to continue the strategic partnership to improve client services and outcomes and develop an implementation strategy.
FISCAL IMPACT:
No fiscal impact as both parties agree that the data sources are being provided by PE at no cost.
BACKGROUND:
The Public Defender (CCPD) entered into a Professional Services Agreement with Policing Equity (PE) on June 8, 2023, as CCPD was seeking to better understand the social determinants (e.g., housing, health, employment, etc.) that influence CCPD clients' interaction with the Contra Costa criminal legal system with the hope of improving services and outcomes for their client population. Ultimately, this project seeks to inform how CCPD can be a better partner to their clients through a combination of programmatic services and county-level advocacy.
The project adopted a two-pronged approach. First, the project assessed the current state of CCPD's database and data collection and conducted a data gap analysis to determine how CCPD could improve its internal and court data collection to better understand its clients. Second, this project conducted a qualitative data analysis to source data directly from CCPD's clients,...
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