Human services agencies face a growing dilemma: how to provide services with limited public resources in a climate of increasing demand for those services. The National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) and the Children’s Research Center (CRC) work with state and county agencies to implement Structured Decision Making^® (SDM) systems to provide workers with simple, objective, and reliable tools with which to make the best possible decisions for individual cases, and to provide managers with information for improved planning, evaluation, and resource allocation.

The principle behind the SDM^® system is that decisions can be improved by the following:

	Clearly defined and consistently applied decision-making criteria.
	Readily measurable practice standards, with expectations of staff clearly identified and reinforced.
	Assessment results directly affecting case and agency decision making.

NCCD/CRC has developed and implemented SDM systems in a variety of human services fields:

	Child Protective/Child Welfare Services
	Prevention Services to TANF Families
	Adult Protective Services

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For more information on any of these SDM systems, click on the links to the right or contact:

Raelene Freitag
Children's Research Center
426 S. Yellowstone Drive, Suite 250
Madison, Wisconsin 53719

Phone: (608) 831-1180
Email: