1. Hot Topics

These are three-hour workshops on today’s hottest topics for human services organizations

 

2. Leadership Development and Leadership Transition

As Baby Boomer leaders are retiring these workshops address both preparing the agency for a transition and preparing middle managers to become able to step up into a senior leadership role.

 

3. Implementing Trauma Informed Care

The federal Children’s Bureau as well as massive recent research has informed providers working with abused and neglected children as well as children removed from their homes for mental health reasons and juvenile justice reasons that we must infuse trauma informed care (TIC) into their practice since 90% of children removed from their family and often his/her family have been traumatized.

 

4. Supervision For Success: Recruiting and Retaining a Gen Y Workforce

 Increasingly we are hiring Generation Y and twenty-somethings to provide our direct delivery of services to clients. Long-standing traditional hiring and retention strategies have been shown to not work with this generation. These workshops help organizational leaders learn how to successfully recruit, hire, and retain this critical generation.

 

5. Increasing Organizational Success

Resilience is a crucial characteristic in this unpredictable world. If human services organizations want to succeed in helping clients, they must become more resilient organizations (recovering from adverse events including past trauma) and must work with its employees in the same practice model they want their staff to use with their clients.

 

i

 

 


HOT TOPICS- Three-Hour Workshops

 

Traumatized Children, Runaways and Non-compliant Behaviors;

What Every Agency Leader Needs to Know and Do

 

Outcomes 

  1. Understanding why traumatized children run away and are non-compliant
  2. Identify the elements of successful care of these traumatized children
  3. Understand the critical relationship between dealing with running away and other non-compliant behaviors and services delivery
  4. Identify program changes required to decrease runaway and non-compliant behaviors


 

Leaders of child- and family-serving agencies are being increasingly faced with adversity. This presentation will examine how to build the capacity for your agency, recover from an adverse event, and build resiliency. Learn how a resilient organization is different from a well-managed organization and why it’s important to be a resilient organization.

 

Outcomes

  1. Define what a resilient organization is
  2. Understand how a resilient organization is different from a well-managed organization
  3. Why leaders need to become leaders of resilient organizations
  4. Identify how organizations can become more resilient

 

 

Why Evidence-Based Practices Are Not Improving Outcomes;

What Every Agency Leader Needs to Know and Do

Outcomes

  1. Understanding the Riddle of successful change
  2. Identify what the research tells us about successful organizational change
  3. Understand the critical relationship between organizational practices and services delivery
  4. Understanding the necessity of implementing organizational practices in a “parallel process” when implementing evidence-based practices at a program/services level

 


Leadership Development and Transition

Is Your Agency Ready for Transition?

 

As the long-term/founding CEO of an organization, your last gift to your agency is insuring its long-term success once you exit.

 

Outcomes

  1. How to ready your agency for transition: Assessing agency readiness
  2. How to ready your board and staff for the transition
  3. Assure the cultural diversity needed for the agency to succeed
  4. How to increase the chance for a new leader to have organizational success

 


Becoming the Next Leader:

Are You Ready to Lead?

 

This workshop is targeted to helping mid-managers and supervisors, identify the knowledge and skills they will need to be an agency’s next leader.

 

Outcomes

  1. Assessing your readiness to step up to the CEO/Executive Director position
  2. How to ready yourself and the organization for transition
  3. Assure that the cultural diversity needed for success is addressed
  4. How to increase your chances for new leader success
  5. What parallel practice is and how important it is to your success
  6. Case study: How to meet the Oregon requirement for using evidence-based practices and why they fail to improve outcomes

 

Charting Your Agency’s Future: Strategic Planning

 

“Traditional long-range strategic planning is dead. Strategy has never been more important. Strategic Planning is about developing a detailed plan about where the company is headed in the future. Strategy is about defining what is essential to the company’s success. It’s about deciding what the company needs to do to be a winner.”

Strategic planning in the economically challenging times requires a different approach. Engaging Board, senior leadership, and representation from all levels of the organization, the participants in a six-hour workshop will set strategic priorities for the agency that are critical to the organization’s future success.


Outcomes

  1. Understand trends impacting future planning in child welfare, behavioral health/human services, and education and non-profit, governmental, and for-profit agencies
  2. Develop a strategic mission, organizational vision, and set strategic priorities
  3. Learn how to use “Annual Strategic Action Plans” as a viable tool for organizational improvement

 

 Becoming More “Mission Driven”

Organizational Leadership has a responsibility to maximize their organization’s retention of staff and achievement of outcomes. Studies tell us that the more mission driven an organization is, the higher their staff retention and staff performance will be. This workshop for senior leadership teams will help them assess and become more “mission driven.”

 

Outcomes

  1. Understand what it means to be “mission driven”
  2. Identify “mission driven practices”
  3. Develop a plan for increasing “mission driven”

 

Implementing Trauma Informed Care

 

Traumatized Children, Runaways and Non-compliant Behaviors;

What Every Agency Leader Needs to Know and Do

 

Outcomes

 

  1. Understanding why traumatized children run away and are non-compliant
  2. Identify the elements of successful care of these traumatized children
  3. Understand the critical relationship between dealing with running away and other non-compliant behaviors and services delivery
  4. Identify program changes required to decrease runaway and non-compliant behaviors

 

Understanding and Resolving Multi-Generational Trauma

 

Outcomes

1. Define what “multi-generational trauma” means

2. Understand how multi-generational trauma happens

3. Examine events in history that may have caused multi-generational trauma

4. Explore how to address existing multi-generational trauma

5. Identify actions that can limit the passage of multi-generational trauma to our next generation

 

Trauma-Informed Care

 

The Federal Administration for Children and Families Children’s Bureau on April 17, 2012 issued Information Memorandum ACYS-CB-IM-12-04 that requires states to include in their health oversight plans a description of how they will screen for and treat trauma associated with removal into foster care (group and residential care), including a complete trauma history.

 

Trauma-informed care is more than training manual or a “safety plan” on the back of a name badge. It is an organizational environment that models the treatment environment you want for traumatized clients. It is an environment in which all staff from CEO to direct service providers understand the prevalence and impact of trauma on the mental and behavioral health of clients in care.

 

If an organization is going to offer trauma-informed care then the organization must provide ongoing training, positive supervision, support, and consultation to staff as they implement in an environment that is not fear-based.

 

The organization’s leaders and supervisors must treat staff in the model of treatment they want staff to do with clients. A positive relationship is the strongest motivation for a person to change. The cornerstone is a relationship that is a success-focused one that helps not hurts (punishes), and builds trust and a secure knowledge that the person is there to help.

 

Staff cannot treat clients any better than their organization’s senior leadership and their supervisors treat them.

 

In response to this mandate and research I have developed a new two-day training:

 

  • Day One is for supervisors and the organization’s leadership and focuses on building an organizational environment that models trauma-informed practice. An organization cannot just train staff; if you want long-term change, then you have to modify the organization’s environment to support that different practice.
  • Day Two is for direct-service staff and is focused on how to do trauma-informed care with clients.

 

Day 1: Becoming an Agency that Successfully Addresses Trauma:

What Every Agency Leader Needs to Know and Do

 

Outcomes

  1. Understand the reasons why an organization needs to recognize trauma in staff and clients
  2. Identify organizational practices and interventions with staff and clients needed to address trauma
  3. Understand the critical relationship between organizational practices and services delivery
  4. Identify organizational changes needed to support staff in their implementation of trauma responsive practices

 

Day 2: Building a Trauma Response into Your Practice:

What Direct-Service Workers Need to Know and Do

 

Outcomes

  1. Identify sources of trauma
  2. Identify how trauma is demonstrated through behavior
  3. Learn how to assess for trauma
  4. Learn strategies for addressing trauma as part of treatment

 

Trauma-Informed Care:

Trauma, Engagement, Empowerment and Achieving Results

 

Outcomes

  1. Understand the difference between presenting issues and actual underlying issues; the role of lifetime and trauma
  2. Work with clients in the context of a family system; understanding the role of family in helping
  3. Understand how to work with clients in an “empowerment” model to inoculate them from harm; helping them overcome the impact of trauma

 

Stress and Secondary Trauma in the Work Place:

Supervisors Can Do in Response

According to the Human Resources Workplace Stress Survey completed in 2007:

  • 70% of HR professionals feel stress is a problem in their organization
  • Over 50% believe stress has become a larger issue in the last year
  • Only 10% of line managers are aware to a great extent of what signs to look for to identify stress

 Outcomes

1. Examine the impact of stress on workers

2. Provide a tool for addressing the issue of organizational stress

3. Distinguish stress, burn out, and secondary trauma

4. Understand the relationship of stress to burn out and secondary trauma

5. Learn how the organization and supervisors need to address stress, burn out, and secondary trauma

 


Supervision For Success:

Recruiting and Retaining a Gen Y Workforce

Building a New Business Model for Recruiting and Retaining Incoming

Gen Y Workforce

Many non-profits are spending increasing amounts of time and agency resources on hiring staff. This workshop will teach strategies for how to spend less time on the hiring process while producing better hiring decisions. Strategies will be presented in the context of understanding our incoming Gen Y workforce.

Outcomes

  1. Defining Generation Y and how are they different from Baby Boomers and Gen X
  2. Identify what Gen Y want in the Hiring Process
  3. Identify organizational tools that need to be redone to support hiring Gen Y
  4. Identify what organizations need to do to retain Gen Y
  5. Identify organizational tools that need to be redone to support retaining Gen Y

 

From Video Games to the Work Place: Hiring Right Generation Y

 

Many non-profits are spending increasing amounts of time and agency resources on hiring direct service/line staff. In this workshop you will learn strategies for how to spend less time and produce better hiring results.

 

Outcomes

  1. Understand what research says about why new hires fail
  2. Understand Gen Y: Our Incoming Workforce
  3. Write job descriptions
  4. Learn how to develop interview questions
  5. Learn how to develop an outreach (internal and external) plan and response system
  6. Review the steps to effective responding/interviewing
  7. Define the elements of “success-focused” tools: employee job descriptions, agency information, program operations manuals, practice models, and clinical models as applicable and employee handbooks

Supervision For Success

Since 2007, Supervision For Success has been taught to over 700 public and private agency supervisors. 100% of participants state they learned how to be a success-focused supervisor and can put into practice what they learned.

Once you have hired Gen Y, every supervisor from CEO/ED to first-line supervisor needs to know how to supervise in a fair and consistent success model, not a punitive-focused model, so staff are more likely to stay and perform. How the leadership of any organization supervises its staff sets the model for how the staff will work with clients.

 

The foundation course is comprised of three days conducted over 3 – 5 months


 


  1. Understand that the reasons persons are hired to be supervisors can be their primary barrier to being a successful supervisor
  2. Identify what the research says about the role of supervisors
  3. Define the success-focused “glass-is-half-full” model of supervision
  4. Understand why it is important to agencies to have a supervision practice model that is “evidence-based”
  5. Identify the core functions of a “success-focused” supervisor
  6. Understand the relationship of Supervision For Success to resilience and improved organizational performance
  7. Understand the relationship between being an effective supervisor and an effective coach
  8. Learn how to confront supervisees in a constructive manner when the supervisor has a problem with their behavior


 

  1. Identify how to build success-focused supervisory relationships
  2. Define how to accomplish four critical supervisory tasks
  3. Learn a format for assessing supervisory competence
  4. Learn how to use the “3 R’s” when your supervisee comes to you with their problem
  5. Learn how to effectively confront up to your supervisor
  6. Look at how to effectively structure the supervisory session


  1. Identify the language of success-focused supervision
  2. Understand the importance of having clear expectations
  3. Define engagement and empowerment and their relationship to Supervision For Success
  4. Operationalize Supervision For Success


 

The Level 2 course is comprised of three one-day sessions conducted over 3-5 months after at least six months from the date the basic course was completed. They can also be done as individual stand-alone follow-up courses. These require completion of the basic three-day course first.

 

Day One: Supervision For Success: The Refresher

Outcomes

1. Identify and remove barriers to implementing success-focused supervision

2. Review the skills of “doing” success-focused supervision and their rationale

3. Develop personal plans for improving use of success-focused supervision

 

 

Day Two: Supervision For Success and Empowerment

Outcomes

 

 1. Define empowerment and how it relates to success-focused supervision

2. Understand how empowerment of staff is necessary to do empowerment with clients

3. Examine how empowerment is realized in being a success-focused supervisor

4. Identify ways organizations/supervisors can increase empowerment of their supervisees

 

 

Day Three: Supervision for Success and Employee Engagement

Outcomes

1. Understanding the need for employee engagement and how success-focused supervision achieves better employee engagement

2. Examine common barriers to being a success-focused supervisor and do solution-focused problem solving around removing identified barriers

3. Learn what the workforce and research studies tell us about employee engagement and employee success

4. Apply the finding from employee engagement to Supervision For Success

 

The following workshops are all based on Supervision For Success principles and extend the agency’s effectiveness

 

Success-Focused Supervision: Implementation Challenges

 

There is an old saying – the devil is in the details. Many supervisors, as they implement Supervision For Success are faced with situations they are not sure how to address while staying success-focused. These workshops further refine their skills at being success focused in practice areas.

 

Success-Focused Clinical Practice

 

There are practice applications for staff from all services. Examples:

 

  • Using success-focused practices in family preservation, case management, and clinical services
  • Using success-focus practices in group and residential care
  • Using success-focused practices with foster care line staff with the course Helping Foster Parents Be Successful
  • Using success principles in school settings

 

Outcomes

  1. Understand the concept of success-focused practice
  2. Define success in practice
  3. Define success for workers and clients
  4. Identify the behaviors of a success-focused worker
  5. Learn to empower through “asking not telling”
  6. Learn how to address issues with clients in an empowerment success framework

Stop Evaluating & Start Doing Performance Management

 

Many non-profit agencies have created evaluation tools that undermine the agencies efforts to support organizational and employee improvement.

 

In this workshop we will look at moving from an “evaluation” framework to a “performance improvement” framework and also how to use your pay system to support those efforts.

 

Outcomes

1. Understand what the law and courts allow

2. Examine what research says

3. Learn how to redesign your evaluation to system to work for, not against you

4. Learn how to redesign your pay so it supports organizational change and achievement

 

 

Leadership Support of Success-Focused Supervision

 

This workshop is for an agency’s senior leadership team. It looks at how the organizational could support success focused practice and helps the senior leadership develop a plan for supporting use of success-focused practices that fits their agency’s needs and resources.

 

Outcomes

1. Identify what organizations can do to support agency-wide implementation of Supervision For Success

2. Examine how to make organizational documents (job descriptions, employee handbook and practice guides) success-focused

3. Understand how align your hiring process with preparing new employees for success

4. Examine how to revise your employee evaluation into a success-focused performance management tool

 

 

The following are one-day work sessions designed for organizational teams to do their initial work on these Supervision For Success implementation documents and processes

 

Developing a Performance Management System

 

This session models employee engagement to draft policy and procedures for doing performance management.

 

Building Behavioral Job Descriptions

 

This session models employee engagement to draft job descriptions based on success behaviors.

 

Building Practice Guides

This session models employee engagement to draft service guides based on success behavior job descriptions.

 

Revising Your Employee Handbook

 

This session models employee engagement designed to model the process in revising your employee handbook to be more success-focused.

 

Coaching for Success

If an agency and its leadership are working on successfully implementing Supervision For Success, coaching is available on a contract basis to help individuals and they agency be successful.

Increasing Organizational Success

 

Resilience – the ability of a person or organization to recover from an adverse event. The following workshops help you build a stronger, more resilient organization.

 

Building a Resilient Organization: It Begins With Leadership 

 

As leaders of child- and family-serving agencies, we are being increasingly faced with adversity. We will examine how to build the capacity for your agency to be resilient.

 

Outcomes

  1.  Define what a resilient organization is
  2.  Understand how a resilient organization is different from a well-managed organization
  3.  Why in today’s ever changing environment it is necessary for organizational leaders to change from leading a well-managed organizations to leading resilient organizations
  4.  Identify the processes that an organization can implement that will increase their organization’s resiliency

 

Note: The workshop includes an organizational resilience assessment tool the agency could use to assess their baseline resilience and then use after the strategic training is completed and implemented to determine if the organization has increased its resilience.

 

Building a More Trusting Organization: Its Leadership’s Job

 

  • Only 51% of employees trust senior management
  • Only 36% of employees believe their leaders act with honesty and integrity
  • Over the past 12 months, 76% of employees have observed illegal or unethical conduct on the job – conduct which, if exposed, would seriously violate public trust

 

Outcomes

  1. Define “trust”
  2. Establish the reasons why organizational trust is necessary
  3. Understand the relationship of organizational trust to organizational performance
  4. Develop a plan for improving organizational trust

 

Increasing Employee Engagement

 

The world’s top performing organizations understand that employee engagement is the force that drives performance outcomes.

 

Employee engagement is the extent to which the agency’s workforce is committed, both emotionally and intellectually to accomplishing the work, mission and vision of the agency. Studies show a direct correlation between employee engagement and (1) staff retention, (2) customer satisfaction, (3) team performance, (4) worker safety, (5) productivity, (6) financial performance, and (7) improving outcomes. Gallup Management Journal found that only 29% of employees are actively engaged in their job.  Employees with the highest level of commitment perform 20% better and are 87% less likely to leave the agency.

 


  1. Learn what the workforce and research studies tell us about employee engagement and employee success
  2. How to assess employee engagement
  3. Identify ways to increase employee engagement

 

Accountability for Supervisors

This workshop is for anyone who is a supervisor at any level of any organization: charity, public, nonprofit, or for-profit.

Outcomes

  1. Define trust
  2. Establish the relationship between trust and accountability
  3. Define why trust and accountability are essential for organizational success
  4. Identify the behaviors of supervisors that result in trust and accountability
  5. Identify what supervisors need from the organization if they are to hold staff accountable

 


Accountability and Organizational Success

This workshop is for all staff that work in any agency; especially staff in-group care settings. Accountability is a decision each staff member must make. This workshop helps staff understand this obligation and provides the organization with a list of actions it must take to increase staff accountability.

 

Outcomes

  1. Examine the need for trust in the work place
  2. Identifies what a staff member must do to be trusted
  3. Defines accountability
  4. Examines the relationship of Trust–Accountability–Organizational Success
  5. Identifies what staff need from supervisors and from the organization if they are to be held accountable for their performance

 

Improving Staff Retention

As non-profits we will probably never be able to pay our staff what they are worth. In this workshop we will look at what studies say about how to retain your staff without having to spend significant additional funds and how to translate that information into practice.

 

Outcomes

  1. Understand what research says about staff retention
  2. How to use the “13 Questions” as a staff retention planning tool
  3. Making orientation work for you
  4. Preview a supervision practice model based on research for staff retention

 

Getting The “Right” Outcomes Owned By The Right Staff

 

In most organizations outcomes and their achievement is “owned” by the agency and the Directors of programs and quality improvement. In fact, achievement of outcomes needs to be owned by the line staff that actually achieves them or not. This workshop is for an organization’s senior leadership, QI staff, and program leadership to look at what the agency’s outcomes are, who should own them, and how we move ownership of performance to the “right” level.

Outcomes

  1. Examine the agency’s outcomes to confirm we have the “right” outcomes
  2. Identify who should own outcomes
  3. How to help line staff own outcome achievements


Share by: