TCOM CONVERSATIONS

Archives

Introducing the TCOM 2020 Conference Chair

The Praed Foundation is delighted to introduce Barbara Dunn as our new Conference Chair for the 16th annual TCOM Conference! Read her letter below! Dear TCOM Collaborative, I am excited about being asked to serve as the Conference Program Chair in 2020! Last year I served on the program committee and thoroughly enjoyed reviewing the […]

Kate Cordell, PhD

Meet Dr. Kate Cordell! Dr. Kate Cordell is a Behavioral Health Services Data Scientist and Researcher. Dr. Cordell integrates data systems to support a whole-person approach to care and builds solutions to put the person at the center. She implements insightful visualizations to track progress for a person and their care team. She builds models […]

Mass Customized Patterns and Priorities for Success

By Kate Cordell, PhD, MPH, Managing Director at Mental Health Data Alliance, LLC What if we could utilize the CANS and ANSA to identify which items, if resolved, were associated with success in our program? What if we could look at that by race/ethnicity, gender and age? If we could, we could get a lot […]

Connecting Through Communication-The Human Experience

By Ken McGill, EdS, LMFT, Rutgers University What is more basic to our understanding than how we develop and use language? Language is used to communicate who we are as individuals. It can be used to describe how we are ‘feeling inside’ to others. It is through this sharing or using words to connect feelings […]

Transformation: Shared Knowledge & Skills Building

By: Ken McGill Senior Training and Consultation Specialist Connecting It All Together… The work within the field of ‘human services’ can often become quite complicated, especially from the perspective of those we serve…the children/youth & families. I have often wondered, “Why do we make things so complicated?” I thought with all of the advances of […]

16th Annual TCOM Conference-Call for Papers!

We are happy to announce the 16th Annual TCOM Conference this year in beautiful and vibrant New Orleans. To highlight our host city, the theme of this year’s conference is “Collaboration and All that Jazz”.  We invite all members of the international TCOM collaborative to submit proposals to present your work. The content of presentations can be varied or broad, but each presentation […]

A Legacy of Relationships

By John Lyons, PhD In 2019, I became an orphan.  Unlike many of the young people with whom we work, I was privileged to have at least one of my parents in my life for 63 years.  But regardless of our age, losing both parents is a profound experience.   My father passed on December 2nd […]

Changing Student Outcomes with Restorative Practices, Part 2

By: Amber Joiner-Hill, MSSW Associate Policy Analyst, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago In Part One of this piece, I outlined some of the impacts that the criminalization of students has on youth outcomes—lower high school graduation rates, higher chances of getting arrested, and increased likelihood of entering the adult criminal justice system. Here I’d like to offer restorative […]

Changing Student Outcomes with Restorative Practices, Part 1

By: Amber Joiner-Hill, MSSW Associate Policy Analyst, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago I started developing a vocabulary around the criminalization of students—particularly those in elementary and middle school—about four years ago when I participated in my city’s “Citizen’s Academy”. The program exposed residents to various government services, functions, and challenges. The intent was […]

Sandtrays, Fables, and Expressive Arts: Story-telling Adventures with the CANS

By: Ritchie Rubio, PhD We were fortunate enough to have Dr. Rubio present at the 15th Annual TCOM Conference earlier this month. In his post below he shares more on using the CANS and story-telling to promote client wellness. Listening to, reading, or sharing a good story is something most if not all of us […]

What Will it Take to Reverse the Youth E-Cigarette Epidemic?

By: Melinda J. Ickes, PhD Associate Professor, Health Promotion; Faculty Associate, Center for Innovation and Population Health, University of Kentucky When we send young people to school, we think about what they are learning, how they are being prepared for a future career path, if they are building friendships, and hope they engage in positive […]

TCOM Conference: Presentation Spotlight

With the 15th Annual TCOM Conference around the corner, we wanted to give you a sneak peek look at some of this year’s presentations! Casey Family Programs took time to answer some questions about their upcoming presentation, Engaging Staff in Improving and Advancing the CANS in Practice: Integrating TCOM Principles into Casey’s Continuous Quality Improvement. […]

TCOM Conference: Presentation Sneak Peek!

With the 15th Annual TCOM Conference around the corner, we wanted to give you a sneak peek look at some of this year’s presentations! Conference presenters Celeste Seibel and Danielle Phillips took some time to answer some questions about their upcoming presentation, Utilizing CANS Within the Wraparound Process. Q: What should individuals look forward to […]

15th Annual TCOM Conference Roundtables

The 15th Annual TCOM Conference is around the corner, and we have some exciting news! For the first time ever, our Pre-Conference Day will feature a series of round tables and master lectures covering a wide range of topics. Attendees will be given the chance to have more in-depth discussions with presenters and each other […]

TCOM Conference: Data Sharing Workshop

The 15th Annual TCOM Conference is around the corner, and we have some exciting news! For the first time ever, our Pre-Conference Day will feature a series of round tables and master lectures covering a wide range of topics. Attendees will be given the chance to have more in-depth discussions with presenters and each other […]

One Person, One Story, One CANS/ANSA

By: Dr. John Lyons Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago A few years ago, I was in Hawai’i over Memorial Day. At the recommendation of a local colleague we attended the candle floating ceremony on Oahu. In the ceremony, people create candles commemorating lost loved ones and float them out to sea together. The […]

Can We Evaluate Whole Person Suffering?

By: Josh Morgan, PsyD SAS Analytics In our field of work, there are many calls to reduce suffering. Seems reasonable, right? It’s even in California’s Mental Health Services Act (MHSA), where public systems are called to “reduce subjective suffering.” And as we broadly focus more on outcomes in health, measuring suffering (and hopefully its reduction) […]

Transformative Culture: The Call for Psychological Safety

By: Tiffany Lindsey, EdD, LPC-MHSP Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago Have you ever made a mistake at work—maybe even one that could have affected you, your teammate, or a client’s safety? If you’re a human who helps other humans for a living, the answer is a prevailing yes. None of us do the […]

Registration is Open! #TCOM2019

We are so excited to announce registration for our 15th Annual TCOM Conference in Palm Springs is now open! Culture and Community: Sharing Stories from the Collaborative Every year the TCOM Conference provides an opportunity to collaborate with and learn from leaders and innovators in behavioral health, child welfare, education, juvenile justice, and more. While […]

Defining Serious Mental Illness

By: Beth Anne Nichols, NH Mental Health Block Grant Plan Administrator New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services In the rugged landscape that is New Hampshire’s mental health system, serious mental illness (SMI) is a powerful thing. On an individual level, an adult experiencing SMI becomes eligible for community-based psychiatric rehabilitation. Psychiatric rehabilitation consists […]

TCOM and Systems Safety: My Journey

By: Tiffany Lindsey, Policy Analyst Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago My journey towards Safety Culture began in a group home. I was 24-years-old and had just started a new job as program manager—my first supervisory role. I was the only clinician on-site. All but one of my staff were older than I was, […]

TA Network Webinar: Effectively Integrating the CANS into the Wraparound Process

Date/Time: April 30, 2019, 11am – 12:30pm PT / 2pm – 3:30pm ET The Wraparound process is the most common care coordination model for youth with complex needs and their families. Meanwhile, the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) is now the most widely used assessment tool in public child-serving systems. While some states, […]

The Joy of Saying Goodbye

This is a farewell blog post about our teammate and friend who is leaving Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago for an exciting new opportunity. Katherine “Katie” Sun joined the TCOM Team in the summer of 2016. Since then, she launched communications platforms, including this blog, to expand the work and voices of the […]

A community gathers to learn how to prevent the trauma of high homicide rates

By: Marrianne McMullen, Director of Communication and Dissemination Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago Audrey Wright, a senior at North Lawndale College Prep High School in Chicago, described the unthinkable to an auditorium packed with 1,500 people. She lost her mother and brother to gun violence within three days. The following year, she lost […]

15th annual TCOM Conference

Culture and Community: Sharing Stories from the Collaborative TCOM is an approach based on storytelling. People seeking help share their experiences (i.e., tell their stories). Sometimes, parts of their stories are retold by multiple professionals based on their skills and focus. In order to effectively help, these stories must be combined into a single story, and […]

Shelly Paule

Shelly Paule, County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency

Viva La CANS

By: Shelly Paule, Policy Analyst County of San Diego Child Welfare Services (CWS) Hi, my name is Shelly Paule. As a policy analyst with the County of San Diego Child Welfare Services (CWS), I was the lead for managing the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) implementation. My role included drafting the policy, training […]

Home Visiting and the FFPSA: Expanding Child Protection Opportunities

By: Deborah Daro, Senior Research Fellow Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago The Family First Prevention and Services Act (FFPSA) (Family First) represents an opportunity to bridge the historic gap between interventions to resolve unhealthy parenting practices and behaviors and programs designed to prevent these behaviors from developing. Creating a shared understanding that treatment […]

Strategic Sustainability Learning Collaborative

The following blog post is written by our friends at Open Minds. Open Minds is a Behavioral Health Market Research and Management Consulting firm based out of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. They specialize in the health and human service sector to serve individuals with the mission of providing providers and payer organizations the resources and knowledge to […]

How to do a Quality Assessment, TCOM Style

Presented and written by Lynda Killoran (Centerstone), Lynn Steiner (Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago), and Deborah Thomas (Centerstone) In our work as trainer, supervisor or clinician, we often hear a variation on THIS theme from assessors who were recently trained on a version of the CANS: “It’s SOOOO long and there are too […]

Family Matters

Family Matters: Why finding and engaging extended family and fictive kin is critical to positive outcomes for children in foster care

Readiness Inventory for Successful Employment

RISEmploy Each TCOM tool is a combination of items inside of a domain meant to reflect the emerging needs and strengths of its population of use. It is adaptable. One of these adaptations is the “Readiness Inventory for Successful Employment (RISEmploy), also known as the Strengths at Work (SAW), can be implemented as its own […]

Continuous Quality Improvement-Moving beyond the data dashboard

“Getting beyond the data dashboard means continuously using rigorous data and evidence to answer the questions that will lead to the solutions that will positively impact the children, youth, and families served by our organizations.” -Yolanda Rogers, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago

Reflections from the conference-TCOM2018

2018 was a big year for the TCOM Collaborative. Based on your conference feedback from years before, we work tirelessly to make sure YOU get the most out of the event. From planning, to producing, to posting materials after the conference ends, we depend on your voice.

Mapping it out with CANS-Y-LAND

Of the TCOM suite of tools, the most widely used tool is the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths Assessment (CANS). The CANS is a communimetric measurement tool that utilizes direct feedback from the youth, family & other team members to identify the actionable needs & strengths of the youth & family in developing and informing the treatment […]

TCOM 2018 Speaker Spotlight- Vida K. Khavar

Meet one of your #TCOM2018 Presenters! Featured in this post: Vida Khavar Vida Khavar is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who has 25 years’ experience in child welfare. Vida began her career as a clinician in various agencies throughout Los Angeles. She developed expertise in all areas of child welfare while striving to bring Permanency to […]

TCOM 2018 Speaker Spotlight- Emily Shapiro & Melissa Villegas

Meet some of your #TCOM2018 Presenters! Featured in this post: Emily B. Shapiro & Melissa Villegas Emily B. Shapiro is a Quality Improvement Associate at Jewish Child and Family Services (JCFS) located in Chicago, IL. She has experience in qualitative research, project management, and evaluation consulting for nonprofit and philanthropic organizations. She provides direct quality improvement […]

My Introduction to TCOM

Rebekka Schaffer, Project Assistant at Chapin Hall I joined the TCOM Team here at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago at the start of July 2018. When I was first introduced to the team, I was worried I wouldn’t even remember what TCOM stood for, let alone understand what they really do. My fears […]

TCOM 2018 Speaker Spotlight- Jen Cardenas

Meet one of your #TCOM2018 Presenters! Featured in this post: Jen Cardenas Jen Cardenas is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and the founder of the Cardenas Consulting Group. She uses her expertise in clinical and operational management to be a critical thought partner, designer, and coach to leaders of behavioral health and child welfare organizations. She brings […]

TCOM 2018 Speaker Spotlight- Jen Griffis & Marrianne McMullen

Meet some of your #TCOM2018 Presenters! Featured in this post: Jen Griffis and Marrianne McMullen Jennifer Griffis is a Parent Consultant with the YES Project, which aims to empower the mental wellness of children, youth, and their families. She engages with the system transformation in Idaho by serving on workgroups and supporting the development of statewide […]

The Development of CHISALS

Thanks to recent technological growth, children are receiving cochlear implants earlier than ever before. This advance in technology offers a great benefit to support earlier development of language skills.   While these advancements are exciting, they, of course, create some new challenges for the young patients, their auditory-verbal therapists, and their families. Because of their young […]

Supporting Caregiver Connections

By: Angela Pollard Project Assistant, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago Trauma and its effects on healthy development has become a bigger part of conversations in helping systems such as child welfare and behavioral health. Too many children experience a variety of potentially traumatic/adverse experiences (ACES), as a result of institutions and systems that […]

Registration is Open! #TCOM2018

Registration is Open! Each year we look forward to hosting the Annual TCOM Conference because it gives us the opportunity to bring together leaders and innovators in the fields of behavioral health, child welfare, juvenile justice, education, and more. This year’s conference theme is Evidence and Transformation: Taking Person-Centered Care to Scale. Person centered care […]

Partner Spotlight: The Institute for Innovation & Implementation

About the Institute: The Institute for Innovation and Implementation (The Institute) serves as a training, technical assistance, evaluation, policy, systems design, and finance center for the Maryland Children’s Cabinet and its member agencies, along with multiple other states, localities, and private organizations. The Institute supports state and local governments and organizations to implement effective systems […]

A Substantial Number of Youth Experiencing Homelessness are Pregnant or Parenting

Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago is a research and policy center focused on a mission of improving the well-being of children and youth, families, and their communities. They combine rigorous research methods to generate evidence, while providing implementation support to apply that evidence in the field. In 2015, Chapin Hall launched the Voices of Youth […]

LGBTQ Young Adults Experience Homelessness at More than Twice the Rate of Peers

Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago is a research and policy center focused on a mission of improving the well-being of children and youth, families, and their communities. They combine rigorous research methods to generate evidence, while providing implementation support to apply that evidence in the field. In 2015, Chapin Hall launched the Voices of Youth […]

TCOM Tools (CANS/ANSA) Certified Trainer

The Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) is a tool that is collaboratively completed to measure a child and family’s strengths and needs. Along with the other TCOM Tools (ANSA, FAST, SSIT, and more), they are evidence-based assessments to support decision-making, including level of care and intervention planning, facilitate quality improvement initiatives, and allows […]

Building a System of Addiction Treatment, One Addiction at a Time

By: Robert Shearer, MD Doctor, Middle Tennessee Addiction Center Incorporating TCOM into Addiction Treatment I discovered the work of Dr Lyons somewhat by accident when I began working with a case management group that belongs to the Tennessee HealthLink program. This program utilizes the Adult Needs and Strengths Assessment. To best communicate with the case […]

The Value of Vignettes

Mention a case vignette to anyone who has gone through the certification process for the CANS, ANSA, CAT/CSPI or FAST and you will likely hear groans, and see eye rolls. Very few people are big fans of testing and vignettes are never as clear or easy as a trainee wishes. So, if test vignettes bring […]

The Start of SYNC

Get IN Chicago is a local organization founded in 2013. Their mission is to identify, fund, and rigorously evaluate evidence-based programs that will reduce violence for individuals and communities in Chicago. Their core programs focus on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Mentoring, and Parent Engagement/Leadership. Last year, Get IN Chicago launched a new Strengthening Youth through […]

Submit NOW to Present at TCOM2018

Planning for the 14th Annual TCOM Conference is underway! Hosted by The Praed Foundation and Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, we invite you to share your work this October in Chicago, IL.

Safe Systems Improvement Tool

Safe Systems Improvement Tool Tennessee’s Communimetric Assessment for Understanding Critical Incidents The 1st annual Safety Culture Summit gave attendees and their larger audience a glimpse of the work being done around safety culture. Along with the tools shared during the poster session at the summit, Michael Cull, Policy Fellow at Chapin Hall at the University […]

TN Safety Culture Summit-2018

The first-ever Safety Culture Summit provided an unprecedented opportunity for child welfare leaders to present strategies, tools and tactics that promote safe, reliable and effective care. Held earlier this month in Nashville, TN, the summit also demonstrated what to expect from the growing partnership from Casey Family Programs, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, […]

CANS in NY-Establishing the Institute

CANS-NY Technical Assistance Institute: Providing training, coaching, and technical assistance in effective use of the CANS-NY New York State is using the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) as the primary eligibility tool for Children’s Health Home access and as an outcomes management tool within this system. In order to support effective use of the CANS-NY by care […]

How TCOM takes Person-Centered Care to Scale

Person-centered care is a strategy of providing health care that views the people using health and social services as equal partners in the entire process of planning, developing and monitoring care to ensure that the care meets their needs.   The idea that health care should be focused on the person is not new.  A considerable […]

Gender: A salient variable

by: Marrianne McMullen, Director of Communication and Dissemination Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago Before last year’s women’s marches across the country, I felt like the country had turned its back on me and my experiences. Then I joined a 250,000-strong march where no back was turned. From the hundreds of blunt and funny […]

Just a Parent

By Jennifer Griffis, author of “Parenting with Hope” blog series August 2017  Join us as Jen shares her experience at the 13th annual TCOM Conference in San Antonio, TX this past fall. — As I walked up to the conference registration table, a feeling of inadequacy began tugging at the corners of my mind. “I […]

Chapin Hall at the 2018 Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) Conference

By: Matt Brenner, Editor and Information Specialist Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago More than a dozen Chapin Hall staff members will contribute to presentations at the 2018 annual Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) conference. The conference, “Achieving Equal Opportunity, Equity, and Justice,” features more than 500 symposia, workshops, roundtables, and paper […]

The Holiday Season Requires Self-Care

As we talked about in our last few posts, the holidays are a complicated time.  Strengths, like natural supports and spiritual/religious worldview and community, are evident.  Cultural stressors can be exacerbated. In addition, individuals who have experienced loss or those who do not have adequate natural supports can experience the holidays as a lonely time.  […]

The Holiday Season Can Increase Feelings of Isolation and Cultural Stress

“‘Tis the season,” as they say.  For some, it is the season of celebration and strengths, but for others, the holidays can represent heightened experiences of cultural stress. In 2015, a controversy about Starbucks’ holiday cups reflected the cultural tension evident in a season that can be perceived as Christian-centric.  Starbucks routinely changes its coffee […]

The Holiday Season Reminds Us Of Our Strengths

The day before Thanksgiving, I was in an elevator with a man, who said, “I love Thanksgiving.  It’s the only holiday of the year that no one feels discriminated against or lonely.”  As we continued to talk, he told me that he was Jewish, and that he frequently felt lonely and stressed during the Christmas […]

Conference Collaboration

by: Evelyn Kintner and Max Kintner, Northern Rivers The October 2017 TCOM Conference provided an incredible opportunity for Max and I to present with Stephen Shimshock and Yvonne Humenay Roberts from Casey Family Programs. Although first intimidated by our illustrious co-presenters, it took all of 20 minutes over lunch before Max and I quickly formed […]

Missed Opportunities: Youth Homelessness in America

This month, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago reached an important milestone in their work on runaway and homeless youth. Voices of Youth Count released Missed Opportunities: Youth Homelessness in America, the first in a series of Research-to-Impact briefs on understanding and addressing youth homelessness.  The first brief — National Estimates — highlights results […]

Project SAFESPACE, Part 2 of 2

Implementation and Goals This is Part 2 of the Project SAFESPACE post.    Project SAFESPACE has experienced many successes since its inception.  The child welfare and behavioral health community interact more frequently and acquired a better understanding of each other’s point of view about service provision.  Both communities have a more formal mechanism for communicating […]

Project SAFESPACE, Part 1 of 2

Background and Project Overview In 2013, The Children’s Bureau awarded Kentucky a grant to enhance access to behavioral health services for children in the custody of the Department for Community Based Services (DCBS) and placed in out of home care (OOHC).  This grant is a five-year cooperative agreement between the University of Louisville (U of […]

Resilience Summit 2017

The National Resilience Institute (NRI) hosted its 4th annual international Resilience Summit at the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago from October 16-18, 2017. Keynote speakers included Michelle Gay, Co-Founder of Safe and Sound Schools: A Sandy Hook Initiative; Steve Gross, Founder and Chief Playmaker of the LIfe is Good Kids Foundation; Janet Hilary, CEO of the Floreat […]

24 and Counting

My son shared his story in the last post. I would like to share parts of this same story from a parent’s perspective. Raising a child with mental illness is not an experience I anticipated I would be adding to my resume. And just like Emily Perl Kingsley’s essay, Welcome to Holland, I found myself […]

Resilience, Recovery, and Hope

My name is Ryan and I would like to share my story of resilience, recovery and hope. As an individual who suffers from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, ADHD and Tourette’s, my life has been quite the roller-coaster ride of emotions. I have been told I was a giggly, happy-go-lucky toddler. I was able to read at the […]

Wrapping up #TCOM2017

November 2017 Update: Presentations from the conference are now available here!   Thank you to those who attended the 13th annual TCOM Conference. It was another great year and YOU are the biggest part of what made this conference a success! Make sure to fill out your post conference surveys. Your feedback will be used […]

Aligning TCOM and Systems Theory

by: Ken McGill, LMFT In many ways the CANS, the FAST (the family version of the Communimetrics approach to measurement) and the ANSA align with the foundational definition of a system as outlined by Ludwig von Bertalanffy almost 40 years ago. A system must consist of four distinct components: Objects: the parts, elements or variables […]

WISe Symposium

In late July Nate and Danijela headed to Yakima, Washington for the Wrap with Intensive Services (WISe) Symposium.  The WISe Symposium:  Networking to Build Strenghts was hosted by the State of Washington Department of Social and Health Services.  It was the state’s first coordinated event that brought together WISe stakeholders from across the state.  Over […]

Advocating for the Appropriate Level of Care

Parenting with hope through the hard places by Jennifer Griffis. Visit the homepage for the full series! — I drove 70 miles to attend this meeting in person. My husband adjusted his work schedule so he could call into the meeting, and my mother-in-law was in the waiting room of the office entertaining a couple […]

Moment of Crisis, Part 3/4

Parenting with hope through the hard places by Jennifer Griffis. Visit the homepage for the full series! — “I don’t think she can safely return home right now. Do you have any other options? Are there any family members who can take her?” My husband and I sat across from our daughter’s case manager as […]

Discharge Planning, Part 2/4

Parenting with hope through the hard places by Jennifer Griffis. Visit the homepage for the full series! — “Here’s the discharge summary. There’s a follow-up appointment for medication management in two weeks. She has an appointment for therapy next week. And here is all of the information on her medication. I just need you to […]

Entering the System, Part 1/4

Welcome to the first post of a 4 part series written by Jennifer Griffis. Visit the homepage for her series for a full look into their experiences. — “The treatment team is recommending long-term residential placement. Have you filled out an application for Children’s Mental Health services?” I was sitting on the floor of my […]

Remembering Trauma Part 2

Earlier this summer, Drs. Cassandra Kisiel and Tracy Fehrenbach, at the Center for Child Trauma Assessment, Services and Interventions (CCTASI) at Northwestern University, a partner in the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN), launched a public awareness campaign and short film entitled “Remembering Trauma: Connecting the Dots Between Complex Trauma and Misdiagnosis in Youth.” This 16-minute film highlights […]

Facilitated Collaborative Inquiry: Evidence Part 4/4

Facilitated Collaborative Inquiry: Evidence Part 4/4 by Stephen Shimshock, PhD Director of Systems-Data and Reporting, Casey Family Programs — Evidence This post is the final part of a four-part series on Facilitated Collaborative Inquiry (FCI). In the previous post (From Stories to Hypotheses) we explored how to engage staff in unpacking the stories behind the data, […]

FCI: From Stories to Hypotheses Part 3/4

Facilitated Collaborative Inquiry: From Stories to Hypothesis Part 3/4 by Stephen Shimshock, PhD Director of Systems-Data and Reporting, Casey Family Programs — This post is part three of a four-part series on Facilitated Collaborative Inquiry (FCI). In the previous post (Using Data to Show Differences in Outcomes) we examined ways to identify subgroups of youth that may […]

FCI: Using Data to Show Differences in Outcomes Part 2/4

Facilitated Collaborative Inquiry: Using Data to Show Differences in Outcomes Part 2/4 by Stephen Shimshock, PhD Director of Systems-Data and Reporting, Casey Family Programs — This post is part 2 of a 4 part series on Facilitated Collaborative Inquiry (FCI). This post builds on the foundational material presented in the previous post . In this post we […]

Facilitated Collaborative Inquiry: Process Overview Part 1/4

Facilitated Collaborative Inquiry: Process Overview Part 1/4 by Stephen Shimshock, PhD Director of Systems-Data and Reporting, Casey Family Programs — Process Overview Facilitated Collaborative Inquiry (FCI) is a continuous quality-improvement (CQI) process that engages staff in every aspect of the inquiry process. The aim of FCI is to improve child welfare outcomes by building a culture […]

The Developing Communimetric Community

by Dan Warner Executive Director and Founder, Community Data Roundtable Originally posted June 19, 2017 on the CDR Blog. Click here to view more of their posts and follow their work. I first met John Lyons in 2011 when he was doing a training in Pennsylvania.  Instantly impressed by his vision for how to measure outcomes in […]

Effectiveness of Functional Family Therapy for Mandated Versus Non-Mandated Youth

Dr. Katarzyna Celinska recently shared her article with the TCOM team entitled “Effectiveness of Functional Family Therapy for Mandated Versus Non-Mandated Youth.”[1] This article was originally published in the Juvenile and Family Court Journal and provides an overview of her extensive study comparing outcomes of youth mandated to participate in therapy versus those whose participation […]

Evidence-Based Health Policy – Caught in the Crosshairs of Politics and Health Reform

Thank you Dr. Purva Rawal for your synopsis on your recent publication. The following discusses major themes in context of current debates surrounding healthcare reform and the Affordable Care Act. ————————————– By: Purva Rawal, PhD Adjunct Assistant Professor at Georgetown University Principal at CapView Strategies phrawal@gmail.com American healthcare is at a crossroads. The Affordable Care […]

Planting a Seed of Wisdom

Thank you to Tracey Merachli for sharing her vision of the CANS in this poem. Planting a Seed of Wisdom, December 2015 by: Tracey Merachli, tmerachli@children-first.ca Resource Consultant-Children First Well let me tell you about my vision for the CANS. It starts with listening to families and understanding their unique life and plans. The life […]

Italy Hosts their First TCOM Conference

May 25th and 26th saw the first Italian conference dedicated to the CANS and TCOM. Entitled “Particepicapzione e valuatazione di esito in eta evolutiva: Approcci collaborative in situazioni complesse, sanitarie e psicosociali.” The meeting was held in Milan and sponsored by the Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico, the conference involved presentations by national leaders in outcomes management […]

Resiliency

Resiliency, as defined by the TCOM tools, is an individual’s capacity to identify and use their internal strengths to manage their lives in times of need and support their own development. Resiliency acknowledges an individual’s ability to “bounce back” from psychosocial consequences resulting from traumatic experiences. These experiences can range from traumatic life events such […]

Remembering Trauma

The Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) held the 2017 National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) All Network conference on April 25-27 in Arlington, Virginia. This year’s theme was “Serving Children and Families Who Have Experience Trauma: Building  a Trauma-Informed Nation.” With a continued commitment to raising the standard of care and improving access to […]

EPISODES: Structure, Function, Management

By: Nathaniel Israel, PhD EPISODES: STRUCTURE, FUNCTION, MANAGEMENT *Episode—a container or set of parameters which define when a series of actions are expected to take place and when interventions have ceased A building block of understanding a person’s care is being able to assign an Episode of Care to a person. Nearly all reports are based […]

Standard Reports: Design for Decision Support

*September 2017 Post Update: Additional information added to the TCOM Report Suite. Click here to view the amended version. The work we do across all levels and systems of care is a knowledge-based community connected to a variety of service settings including clinics, hospitals, state and local agencies. Ultimately, the goal is to improve the […]

Managing the Business of Helping: Overcoming the Myths of Outcomes Management

*5/3/2017 UPDATE:  Hope you enjoyed the Webinar! Click HERE to view slides used in today’s presentation. by Tristan Keelan, TenEleven Group TenEleven Group is pleased to sponsor a FREE webinar featuring Dr. John S. Lyons titled Managing the Business of Helping: Overcoming the Myths of Outcomes Management.  Dr. Lyons has 35 years of experience in the […]

Rethinking Engagement in a High Staff Turnover Environment

By: Dr. John S Lyons Engagement is the second key decision point in the TCOM conceptual framework.  Historically in most helping professions we have thought of engagement as primarily personal and often between two people.   A therapist engages a client in mental health treatment.    A substance treatment provider engages a person in their recovery process.   […]

Collaborating To Address Child Trauma

by:  Gene Griffin, J.D., Ph.D. Senior Fellow for Policy and Practice ChildTrauma Academy John Lyons, in his post of December 27, 2016, Complicated versus Complex: Implications for Collaboration, distinguished between a complicated system and a complex system. In a complicated system, all components and the result of their interactions are predictable. In a complex system, the final […]

Interactive Reports: A Feasible Goal for Any Organization

By Jesh Harbaugh, Assistant Director of Business Intelligence Development, Evaluation, and Strategic Initiatives (DESI) SENECA FAMILY OF AGENCIES This is the last post of a 3 part series In the previous posts of this series, Data is Only Useful When it’s Used and Increasing the Value of Your Data With Interactive Reports,  I’ve discussed the […]

Increasing the Value of Your Data with Interactive Reports

By Jesh Harbaugh, Assistant Director of Business Intelligence Development, Evaluation, and Strategic Initiatives (DESI) SENECA FAMILY OF AGENCIES
This post is Part 2 of 3! Stay tuned next week for more from Jesh and Seneca Family of Agencies

Data is Only Useful When it’s Used

By Jesh Harbaugh, Assistant Director of Business Intelligence Development, Evaluation, and Strategic Initiatives (DESI) SENECA FAMILY OF AGENCIES This is the first post of a 3 part series In the helping professions, few words elicit such strong and varied reactions as “data.”  In our culture of evidence-informed treatment, having strong outcome data to support your […]

The HEADS-ED: A Rapid Mental Health Screening Tool for Children and Youth

by: Mario Cappelli, PhD and Paula Cloutier, MA Affiliations:  1Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), 2CHEO Research Institute, 3University of Ottawa What is the HEADS-ED? The HEADS-ED is a brief mental health screening tool that helps physicians to obtain a psychosocial history to aid in making decisions regarding patient disposition (e.g., admission, discharge, or requesting […]

Adaptation of the CANS and ANSA in Russia

by: Svetlana G Klimanova, M.S. Contact Svetlana, svetlanagk@mail.ru *5/8/2017 Update* Following a great question from one of our followers, Svetlana provided the following articles as additional resources on adapting the CANS and ANSA for Russian implementation. The World’s Youth The Russian Education System Described and Compared with the Dutch System Alternative Education: Comparative Study of […]

The Growing TCOM Team

Happy Presidents’ Day! In the United States, the third Monday of February is known as Presidents’ Day, which historically honors the first President of the United States, George Washington. Today, Presidents’ Day is commonly viewed as a day to celebrate all presidents – past, present and future.  Today at the Praed Foundation and Chapin Hall […]

Communimetrics Roundtable

By Dan Warner, Ph.D. Are you a Communimetrics data nerd? Do you worry about your CANS’ data integrity and database structure? Perhaps you find yourself drifting off into thoughts about data capture, storage, security, and analysis! (oy, the list goes on…). Or maybe you’re more on the statistical and display side: trying to identify norms […]

Healthy Relationships

Happy Valentine’s Day! What does Valentine’s Day mean to you? Is it a celebration of love, a hallmark holiday, or both? As a child, this holiday can take the form of a classroom activity where you put Valentine’s Day grams with chocolates and hand them out to each child in the class. As we get […]

TCOM’s Targeted Tools

The TCOM Team met in Chicago in January to kick off the New Year and review the work being done across the collaborative. As a result of this meeting we’ve produced our very first TCOM newsletter that highlights these efforts! *Keep an eye out for the release of our newsletter next week!* One important discussion at […]

The Women’s March-January 21, 2017

by Suzanne Button Two women meet at their child’s school. Mothers and daughters become and stay friends, even though one family moves far away– from Alaska to Virginia. This longstanding social connection leads, through a series of other social connections, to 21 women, ranging in age from 9 to 93, spending the weekend marching in […]

Defining a Caregiver

A caregiver is a family member or paid helper who provides physical, emotional, and/or developmental support for an individual who is unable to fully care for themselves.  When an individual is in care or receiving services, it is often important to look at multiple aspects of their life – strengths, risk behaviors, functioning, and school/work. […]

The STRENGTH that lies in our Cultural Identity

In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that effectively put civil rights on the top of the agenda and preceded the passage of the Civil Rights act of 1964. It is on this day that we take a moment as an entire nation to reflect […]

TCOM Algorithms for Decision Points in Care

“Always return to a focus on the shared vision—the best interests of the people we help.”  John S Lyons By: Dr. Suzanne Button, sbutton@chapinhall.org A few weeks ago, in TCOM Conversations, Nate Israel wrote about improving the health of people-serving systems with “alignment in decision-making at every level of the system,” and emphasized the importance […]

Helping Commercially Sexually Exploited Children (CSEC)

There is a growing awareness that the sex industry sometimes victimizes children.  The Federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000, along with reauthorizations in 2003, 2005, and 2008 describes a victim of human trafficking as a person induced to perform labor or a commercial sex act through force, fraud, or coercion. Any person under […]

Lean Management and TCOM

We shared a video recently on our Facebook and Twitter from the New York Times called “We Trust You” from the series, The Art of Better. This video, created by Charles Duhigg, examines issues of innovation, motivation, and productivity through the lens of the automobile industry in the U.S. The parallels between how one factory […]

Complicated versus Complex: Implications for Collaboration

by: Dr. John S. Lyons The ‘C’ in TCOM standards for ‘Collaboration’ so it is useful to understand why we believe that collaboration is a fundamental aspect of using data to inform helping programs and systems. In order to describe the thinking behind this choice it is useful to consider the similarities and differences between […]

IMDS Quarterly Newsletter Winter 2016

TCOMHappy Holidays from New Jersey! written by: Kenneth McGill The ‘Holiday Season’ is well in progress and the wrap-up of 2016 is near!  Looking back…what are some of the highlights you want to remember…are there things you would like to soon forget…what do you have planned for the New Year? Well enough introspection. My hope and wishes […]

A Cost-effective, Evidence-based Intervention for Depressed Adolescents

December 14, 2016 Written by Paul Berger, Managing Director at SAAVSUS Inc Funded by a series of grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, the Adolescent Coping with Depression Course (CWD-A) is an evidence-based, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for adolescent depression. The course materials, Leaders Manual and Student Workbook, are available as a free download […]

The RISE: A Tool for Fostering Entrepreneurship in Human Service Settings

By: Dr. Thomas S. Lyons, PhD Michigan State University R.I.S.E. -Readiness Inventory for Successful Entrepreneurship   In the business world, it has been known for some time that companies that want to be successful in the highly competitive global economy must be constantly reinventing themselves through innovation. This requires that they develop a culture of […]

“Do the right thing”-TenEleven group

In August, Dr. John Lyons presented a keynote at the 5th annual user conference TenEleven CONNECT. Dr. Lyons talked about “doing the right thing” for those in need with a focus on measurement and outcomes. To see the original post, visit their page at 10e11.com Dr. John Lyons and Spike Lee say: “Do the Right Thing” By: […]

CASELOAD VERSUS WORKLOAD MANAGEMENT

By: Dr. John S. Lyons               Have you ever had this situation? You have talented staff and ask them to take on the most challenging cases, but then they burn out and leave for a different job, and as a manager you are now left with the staff you’ve been working around when it comes […]

Key Decision Points for Collaborative CQI-Part 1

This is the first post of a multi-part series on Collaborative CQI (Continuous Quality Improvement) Part 1: Creating Trust and Positive Impact by Nathaniel Israel Health and human service systems are composed of people. People make important decisions which shift the likelihood that children and families will meet their health and wellness goals. Having a […]