Record the participant's current court phase on their profile, give each required service its own enrollment with attended, absent, or unmarked attendance, and generate the progress update the team asks for from that same record. The court team decides phase changes; the provider's job is an accurate, current record.
Mental health courts move participants through phases, and each phase usually comes with its own mix of treatment sessions, groups, case management appointments, and sometimes testing. Providers who serve the court have to show where each participant stands before every status hearing. This guide answers the questions providers ask when they set that tracking up.
What should a provider track for each mental health court participant?
Track the case details, the current phase, every ordered service as a separate enrollment, attendance for each scheduled session, the program-defined milestones for the phase, and any test results the court requires. Keep clinical notes in your clinical system.
The problem
Phase requirements often live in a binder or a spreadsheet, attendance lives in a sign-in sheet, and the progress update is typed from memory. When the team asks "is this participant ready to move up?", nobody can answer from one screen.
How COPS solves it
- Case information on the client profile: court, judge, attorney, and referral source.
- A court phase field on the profile, so the current phase is visible on the record.
- Progress fields and progress comments for the milestones your program defines for each phase.
- Test results recorded on the client profile when the drug-testing module is enabled.
- Client-level DSM code assignment where your program uses it.
How do you record which phase a participant is in?
Use one phase field on the participant's record and update it only when the court team approves a change. Add a progress comment with the date and who approved it, so the history is clear later.
The problem
Phase status that lives only in staff email means two staff members can give the court two different answers.
How COPS solves it
- The court phase sits on the client profile, next to the case details.
- Progress comments keep a dated trail of what changed.
- The full staff audit log shows who edited the record.
How should treatment attendance be separated from other court requirements?
Give each service its own enrollment: individual sessions, groups, and case management appointments. Each one keeps its own schedule and attendance, so a progress update never counts a group session as an individual session.
The problem
When everything is logged as "appointment," the team cannot see that a participant attends groups faithfully but has missed three individual sessions.
How COPS solves it
- Multiple program enrollments per client, all on one profile.
- Recurring weekly schedules plus one-off sessions, with staff assigned per session.
- Three-state attendance (attended, absent, unmarked) with bulk roster marking for groups.
- Kiosk self check-in with signature capture where participants attend in person.
What happens when a participant misses sessions between hearings?
The provider should know within days, not the morning of the hearing. Mark every session, resolve unmarked sessions quickly, and let alerts flag absences so staff can follow up and document the result.
The problem
Unmarked sessions look like absences in a report, and real absences go unnoticed until the update is due.
How COPS solves it
- Automated alerts and reminders, so absences and unmarked sessions get attention.
- Session notes per class to record what staff did next.
- Attendance reports exportable to CSV, Excel, or PDF for staff review.
What should a phase progress update to the court team include?
The participant's name and case details, the current phase, sessions attended out of sessions scheduled for each service during the period, unmarked sessions still being checked, phase milestones met, required test results, and a short staff note. Review it before sending and keep a copy.
The problem
Updates written by hand look different every time and are hard to reproduce if the court asks what was sent.
How COPS solves it
- Document templates with merge tags pull the facts from the participant record.
- Monthly reports move from draft to final PDF, with history.
- Generated-document history shows what was produced and when.
- For a full pre-staffing view, see what mental health court staffing reports need.
Phase tracking setup: 7 steps
- List the phases your court uses and the requirements for each one.
- Create a program for each required service (individual, group, case management).
- Enroll each participant in the services their current phase requires.
- Set recurring schedules and assign staff to each session.
- Mark attendance for every session and resolve unmarked sessions each week.
- Record the court phase on the profile and add a dated progress comment when the team approves a change.
- Generate the progress update from the record, review it, and keep the copy.
What COPS does not do
COPS is program operations software. It is not a clinical EHR, does not score participants or recommend sanctions, and does not decide phase changes. It does not include validated risk instruments or electronic monitoring. Clinical charting stays in your clinical system; see how program software differs from an EHR.
Where COPS fits
COPS helps mental health court treatment providers keep phase, enrollments, attendance, test results, documents, and progress updates on one participant record. See mental health court software, court-ordered counseling software, the best reporting tools for treatment courts, and what sex offender treatment providers report to probation.