Roundtables
Description:
TCOM tools are essential in providing assessment and linkage to appropriate care for the youth and families who we serve. For those of us who are providing services to youth and families who speak Spanish, we are often challenged with “translating” the tools, making sure that they fit the needs of the families, as we as well as encompass the various cultures of the families served. TCOM con cafe is a group of professionals who are dedicated to providing quality assessments in Spanish. This workshop will create a space for Spanish-speaking providers to connect, share experiences, and identify ways to work together utilizing and implementing the philosophy of TCOM in Spanish.
Learning Objectives:
- Participants will be able to describe at least three differences in training, coaching, and implementation from English to Spanish.
- Participants will be able to discuss at least 3 challenges and identify at least 3 strengths of promoting the TCOM framework in Spanish nationwide and worldwide.
Target Audience: Spanish speaking participants preferably. Everyone is welcome.
Presenters:
- Ari Acosta: ari.acosta@uky.edu
- Ari Acosta is a Senior Policy Analyst Center for Innovation in Population Health, University of Kentucky. Bilingual Senior Policy Analyst, providing training support and technical assistance conducted in English and Spanish on the use of the TCOM Tools: Childand Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS), the Adult Needs and Strengths Assessment (ANSA) the Family Advocacy and Support Tool (FAST), and the Safe System Improvement Tool (SSIT). Support in the implementation and evaluation of adult and children’s systems of care, behavioral health and child protection with agencies and jurisdictions across the United States.
- Rita Camarillo, LPC: r.camarillo@rutgers.edu
- Rita Camarillo, LPC is a Training & Consultation Specialist with Rutgers Behavioral Research & Training Institute for the Children’s System of Care Training Program in New Jersey. She graduated from the College of St. Elizabeth in 2004 with a Masters in Counseling Psychology degree. She completed her undergraduate degree at Rutgers University. Rita has over 21years of experience working in behavioral health beginning her career as a youth and family counselor at a domestic violence center. Since 2004 Rita has worked in different capacities within the NJ Children’s System of Care including Children’s Mobile Response Crisis Intervention Specialist, Mobile Response Program Coordinator, Behavioral Assistant, and Intensive In-Community Clinician. Rita has been utilizing the Crisis Assessment Tool (CAT) and Strength and Needs Assessment(SNA) since 2004 and is a certified trainer in the TCOM tools. Rita provides individual and family therapy services to many immigrant communities. In addition she currently trains on immigrant trauma and best practices working with immigrants. She speaks several languages including Spanish and Arabic and is proud to be a certified Nurtured Heart Approach Trainer.
- Jorge Sanchez: jsanchez@casey.org
Description:
Subjective well-being is a powerful potential target of attention for policy makers, leaders, systems of care and education, and individual educators and practitioners. Research on well-being has identified its components, which are nuanced, contextually grounded, and individually unique. More recent neuroscientific research directs human-serving systems to those trainable strengths and skills that are common components of well-being, and that can be measured, instilled, or strengthened in ways that are individually and contextually responsive. In this two-hour round table, we will review a framework for operationalizing the measurement and development of wellness and strengths that is rooted in brain science, has potential for population, systems, and individual-level measurement, and can bring transformational impact to the improvement of life and health outcomes in the systems we serve.
Outline:
- Provide an overview of the potential power of subjective well-being for improving life and health outcomes.
- Define the components of wellbeing and the skills that potentiate those components.
- Review the ‘four pillars of wellness’ as outlined by the Center for Healthy Minds.
- Break down the measurable and trainable ‘brain skills’ that can be targeted at the population, systems, and individual levels.
Learning Objectives:
- Participants will identify the components of wellbeing.
- Participants will differentiate between popular definitions of wellbeing and science-based wellbeing promotion strategies.
- Participants will learn how to apply the science of wellbeing at each level of the human-serving system (population, program, or individual).
- Participants will practice a few exercises developed to instill wellness-promoting brain skills.
Target Audience: Policy makers, leaders, educators and direct human-serving practitioners
Presenter:
- Suzanne Button, PhD(suzanne@lotic.ai): Dr. Button is the Senior Clinical Psychologist for Lotic.AI, which is a well-being insights company committed to helping people live life better. Lotic.AI is an early-stage start-up founded on the premise that human stories hold power that can help each person thrive. Dr. Button has worked with human-serving systems for almost 30 years. She developed and implemented a national suicide risk prevention/mental health program for America’s high schools with The Jed Foundation and was a policy fellow with Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, where she was a proud member of the national TCOM team. She is passionate about finding ways to promote access to resources that promote health, wellness, and recovery for all humans.
- Katie Penry, PhD(katie@lotic.ai): Dr. Penry is a Clinical Psychologist for Lotic.AI. She has worked over 15 years in cross-setting collaboration as a private practitioner, consultant, and author – focusing on the recovery, resilience, and prevention of serious and persistent mental illness in underserved communities. She specializes in the cyber mental health space, harnessing various digital intervention strategies and AI to scale well-being and mental health. Her book, Parenting Toddlers Workbook, is a popular publication in the infant and toddler space for its accessibility and practical skill building opportunities
Long Course
Ms. Janet Hoeke, Dr. Jennifer Roland, and Dr. De Lacy Davis will facilitate this two-part workshop to explore Critical Race Theory from black and white perspectives. We will discuss what Critical Race Theory is and how it impacts the families we serve. This session is intended to be an open and historical exploration of and insight into how families of color view themselves and are viewed by others; and, how this impacts the services they receive, and the experiences that they have in a family driven system. The family’s story is supposed to drive the conversation. What happens when the narrative of the story isn’t controlled by the family telling it undermines the family as well as the services they receive.
We will explore our assumptions, examine examples, and get curious about how our own experience impacts the service we provide. We will delve into cognitive dissonance, double marginality, and double consciousness; their meaning and impact. Further, we will wrap all this around the family’s story; who controls it, who gets to tell it, and why it matters. We will come away with: a deeper understanding of our world as seen through black and white lenses, why who tells the story matters, how and why we rationalize our point of view and ways to mitigate the impact of this and how to have a conversation around Critical Race Theory.
Outline:
- Critical Race Theory perspectives from a black and white lens
- The story is the most important part
- Failure to recognize how people are viewed relative to the service delivery is problematic
- Historical understanding of race and the role race plays in the United States.
- Who controls the narrative, controls the stories.
- Review assumptions based on what we have learned either in school, historically, have been told, or believed to be true.
- Serving those we don’t respect
- Everyone’s story deserves to be told
- Cognitive dissonance, double marginality, double consciousness and its impact on families and providers
- If your story isn’t told, then you do not count
- Who tells the American story defines the reality for those in the story.
Learning objectives
This workshop is designed to help us:
- Develop a working understanding of Critical Race Theory,
- Recognize the role of stories in who controls the narrative,
- Identify cognitive dissonance, double marginality, and double consciousness in populations and systems we serve, and
- Formulate ways to have a conversation around race in America.
Target: direct care workers, social workers, agency/organization administrators, county/state directors, or family members
Short Courses
Join our interactive workshop and learn the basics of working with CANS data using R. Our instructors will guide you through the process, and you’ll get hands-on experience using R to analyze CANS data like a pro. Don’t miss this opportunity to expand your skills and take your data analysis to the next level – bring your computer and join us today! No prior experience needed – just a passion for data analysis and a willingness to learn. In the workshop attendees will
- Open RStudio and identify the function of the four main panes.
- Load a script file, run lines from it, edit and save the script file.
- Set a working directory and read in a simulated CANNS data set.
- Create basic data summaries for a single variable from a simulated CANNS data set.
- Create univariate visualizations using GGplot from a simulated CANNS data set.
- Identify how R could be implemented to create advanced summaries and visualizations from a simulated CANNS data set.
- Identify additional resources for further learning and help.
Attendees are encouraged to install R before the workshop
When installing R and R-studio you will want to install R first. Visit the following websites:
- R: https://mirror.las.iastate.edu/CRAN/
- R-Studio: https://posit.co/download/rstudio-desktop/#download
When installing R you may be asked to select a mirror. The choice of mirror is not important, select one of the USA options. If you have any questions please contact Amanda Ellis at amanda.ellis@uky.edu.
Dr. Amanda Ellis is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biostatistics. She is currently serving as the Vice Chair of the department and Director of Graduate Studies for the Master of Science in Biostatistics Program. Her focus is on graduate education, course and curriculum development.
Description:
This short course uses a community-engaged interdisciplinary perspective to analyze barriers fathers experience interfacing with key systems and social services to gain skills and capacity to effectively engage with their children as co-parents. Facilitators will dissect the concept of fatherhood with a racial and social justice lens and discuss its impact on child wellbeing; evaluate structural barriers that contribute to father disengagement across key systems and jeopardize effective co-parenting; and discuss the lived experiences of fathers of color. This course is informed by findings from a community-engaged qualitative study examining fathers’ barriers and opportunities to actively participate in their children’s lives.
Learning objectives:
- Evaluate fathers’ barriers and opportunities to actively participate in their children’s lives as co-parents.
- Analyze structural barriers across key systems that contribute to fathers’ disengagement and jeopardize effective co-parenting.
- Understand the lived experiences of fathers of color.
Presenters:
- Rafael E. Pérez Figueroa, MD, MPH. Associate Dean for Community Engagement and Public Health Practice and Associate Professor of Urban-Global Public Health, Rutgers University School of Public Health.
- Antonio Garcia, PhD. Associate Professor, Buckhorn Professor of Social Work, University of Kentucky College of Social Work.
- David Cozart, MTh. Chief Officer, Commonwealth Center for Fathers & Families.
- Shelby Clark, PhD. Assistant Professor, University of Kentucky College of Social Work.
Description:
Human-serving systems have long understood that individual and family strengths are particularly powerful and precious moderators of adversity. As indicators that more and more individuals are struggling with health, mental health, and contextual challenges continue to rise, systems and practitioners are seeking population level, real-time information that points to effective action. The science of subjective well-being has deep potential to answer the call, with well-replicated and pervasive links to positive health and life outcomes and capacity to measure and target wellbeing to promote health and mental health-promoting behaviors. In this two-hour short course, we will learn about the power of subjective well-being across populations and review population and individual level wellbeing measurement strategies. We also will use case examples and our own experiences to explicitly operationalize the ways that systems, leaders, educators, and human-serving practitioners can work to target and enhance subjective well-being and its correlate strengths in the providers and recipients of our care.
Presentation Outline:
- Briefly review current population-level indicators of deteriorating well-being.
- Discuss the definition of and contributors to subjective well-being.
- Dive deeply into the well-established scientific support for subjective well-being and its impact on health and life outcomes.
- Apply this deepened understanding to the outcomes and challenges of our work.
Learning Objectives:
- Participants will develop a deep understanding of subjective well-being, its contributors, and the ways that it impacts health and life outcomes.
- Participants will identify policy level, organizational, and programmatic actions that deeply build subjective well-being and its functional correlates.
- Participants will apply their own experiences with systems and programmatic outcomes to their enhanced understanding of what strength-building really means.
Target Audience: Policy makers, leaders, educators, and direct human-serving practitioners
Presenters:
- Suzanne Button, PhD, Senior Clinical Psychologist, Lotic.AI — suzanne@lotic.ai
- Katie Penry, PhD, Clinical Psychologist, Lotic.AI — katie@lotic.ai
Description:
Come and clown around with us as we explore the critical role of the circus ringmaster, just like the TCOM trainer, who must bring both content and expertise, while utilizing techniques to excite and engage the audience on a show they won’t forget. This two-hour workshop will examine the lifespan of a learning experience, including elements of instructional design, implementation and evaluation. As part of the discussion, examples of how critical components of TCOM learning (Seven Key Principles, Scoring Vignettes, Person Centered Planning) will be shared. With our various backgrounds and experiences, we will reflect on lessons learned and collaboratively create a training plan that will ensure your learners are engaged and committed to the TCOM framework.
Target Audience*:
This workshop is open to both new and seasoned trainers looking to explore and expand current training practices; shifting from a training mindset to a framework that supports a continuous learning experience for the TCOM practitioner.
Learning Objectives:
- Diagram the TCOM plan and identify innovative and engaging training techniques that will maximize the application of TCOM and the use of the Assessments.
- Integrate adult learning principles into their TCOM training, promoting high levels of investment, motivation, and retention for the trainees.
- Organize a spaced education plan which incorporates technology to improve accessibility to resources and enhance the sustainability of TCOM in practice.
- Produce an experiential training plan that aligns with TCOM and the needs of their organization/jurisdiction.
*We will be offering optional “office hours” for TCOM trainers to come for additional support.
Ringmasters:
- Robin Orlando-Price, MA
Robin Orlando-Price is the co-owner of AERO Learning and Design Consulting Services which provides a holistic approach to the development of needs assessments, instructional design and the implementation of dynamic learning experiences with the goal of improving workforce wellbeing, satisfaction, and organizational outcomes. For over 20 years, Ms. Orlando-Price worked at the Allegheny County Department of Human Services. During her tenure, Ms. Orlando-Price promoted system transformation by fostering an agency-wide culture of learning and innovation steeped in best practice and adult learning principles. In addition, she oversaw the cross-systems training and implementation of the TCOM assessments throughout Allegheny County. Ms. Orlando-Price has spent several years studying mindfulness and meditation; concentrating on cultivating a healthy workplace environment that supports workforce wellbeing. She is certified as Mindfulness Instructor and Resiliency Practitioner. Ms. Orlando-Price is a passionate mental health advocate; certified Mental Health First Aid instructor, and certified Trained Professional Coach.
- Alacia L. Eicher, MA
Alacia L. Eicher is the co-owner of AERO Learning and Design Consulting, and a Senior Applied Learning and Development Specialist for the Allegheny County Department of Human Services in Pittsburgh, PA. Ms. Eicher serves as the manager of TCOM implementation in Allegheny County. In this role, she leads a team in the planning and implementation on the TCOM Assessments and several adjacent initiatives, including Practical Application Workshops, Train the Trainer programs, CQI processes, the engagement and sustainment of the Assessment Champions, and the development and integration of analytic dashboards. Alacia is an alumnus of the Allegheny County DHS Leadership Fellow Program and assisted with analyzing and developing solutions to complex system problems. Alacia has a history of working with families, adults and transitional age youth and has obtained her Master of Arts in Adult Learning and Training.
Breakout Sessions
West Virginia DHHR in collaboration with Marshall University (MU) assessed workers in the Bureau of Social Services, which includes child protective service and youth service workers through the Safety Culture Survey. Once completed trainings that focused on trauma, self-care, team building, and supervisors, as well as peer support groups were implemented. MU during the presentation will give participants practical ways to implement the survey, trainings, peer support groups and critical incident teams.
Learning objectives
• Participants will be able to identify self-care and team building techniques that may be useful to their
agency or state.
• Participants will be able to list the steps to developing a peer support group
• Participants will be able to formulate how a University based critical incident team may work in their state.
Target: Those interested in assessing the safety culture in their program or state and decreasing secondary traumatic stress and vicarious trauma.
Presenters:
- LuAnn Edge, MSW
- Ashley Kimble
- Susan Richards
West Virginia has been utilizing TCOM tools for well over 15 years to improve the lives of children and families. The focus of the state is to ensure children are placed in appropriate levels of care with the goal always being the least restrictive. The state has implemented several tactics in the last few years to assist in reaching that goal. These include partnerships with Marshall University that provides oversight to all TCOM activities in the state, a Latent Class Analysis, development of a Decision Support Model and implementing a Trauma-Sensitive workplace in DHHR.
WV will share how the TCOM tools can be used as tactics for your state to support decisions, outcomes monitoring and quality improvement. They demonstrate how in the state of WV the tools have been used at an individual and family level, program and system level.
Learning objectives
• This workshop is designed to help states or programs to move from just filling out a form to utilizing the
TCOM tools to meet their state’s needs.
• Participants will be able to identify 2-3 TCOM tactics to help them meet their state’s goals related to
children, adults and families.
Target: Programs and States interested in using the CANS and other TCOM tools in other ways than just completing a form.
- Tammy Pearson, MA
- Linda Gibson
- Laura Hunt
Clinical decision support systems are quickly becoming essential tools for healthcare providers as the volume of available data increases alongside their responsibility to deliver value-based care. They have long been established parts of care in the medical community, as well as Physical and Occupational therapies. Reducing clinical variation and duplicative treatment, ensuring client and staff safety, and avoiding complications that may result in expensive clawbacks are top priorities for providers in the modern regulatory and reimbursement environment – and harnessing the hidden insights of big data is essential for achieving these goals. Because the growth of this field has increased at a far greater pace than that of other healthcare types, it’s crucial that providers adopt technology to help them stay current on the latest data, trends, and best practices.
Learning objectives
- Identify key components, uses, and implications of Clinical Decision Support Systems
- Understand the relationship between Quality of Life, Medical-Necessity, and Outcomes
- Conceptualize some of the drivers in the trends of autism rates of prevalence”
Target:
Family/Parent Partners and Youth Advocates,Direct Care Workers,Administrators,Supervisors/Coaches,Researchers/Analysts,Other: Anyone impacted by autism/neurodiversity
- Amanda Ralston (she/her) has been certified as a behavior analyst since 2002, first as a BCaBA, and then as a BCBA.
email: mandy@nonbinarysolutions.com
In 2019, Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services overhauled its child death review process and joined the National Partnership for Child Safety. After a slow start, the state found its stride, making significant improvements to its process by incorporating equity, inclusion, and trauma-informed components not only for those involved with the critical incident but those reviewing them. This training is a roadmap and overview of the lessons learned that led Michigan to system transformation and enhance the way it responds to critical incidents.
The Michigan team will use PowerPoint, case studies, and comparisons between our old system of fatality review and the new Safe System Review process.
Learning objectives
- Participants will learn strategies to enhance traditional review procedures, incorporate equity and inclusion, and combat oversight “trauma”.
Target:
Anyone in an oversight, review capacity that has engaged in traditional review processes. Those interested in system transformation. Those who participate in the oversight of child welfare programs.
- Seth Persky, State Manager Office of Family Advocate perskys@michigan.gov
Jamielah Jenkins, Departmental Specialist Office of Family Advocate JenkinsJ2@michigan.gov
The goal of this session is to bring to light the need for a variety of services for those incarcerated in jails and prisons, including Medically Assisted Treatment (MAT), behavioral health supports, education and workforce development opportunities, and re-entry planning and coordination. In 2008 there were approximately 2.4 million individuals in the United States and territories in 1.5 million federal and state prisons, about 800,000 local jails, and 90,000 juvenile facilities (Prison Policy, 2023). The U.S. Correctional System must be focused on ‘corrections’ rather than solely on punishment. Corrections must include rehabilitation, not only during the time spent incarcerated but also during parole and probation.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse 85% of the prison population has an active substance use disorder or were incarcerated for a crime involving drugs or drug use (NIDA, 2023). Using technology which supports ‘whole-person collaborative care’ and the TCOM Tool (Adult Needs & Strengths Assessment) can serve as the first corrective step towards rehabilitating.
Learning objectives
- At the end of this session, participants will be able to describe the current cycle of relapse and recidivism and distinguish between detainment and corrective interventions.
- This presentation is designed for attendees to be able to identify the needs of justice-involved individuals experiencing substance use disorders and provide an outline of tangible steps to successfully address the high rates of substance misuse, overdose, relapse, and recidivism across the United States.
- Attendees will develop a working knowledge of the current state of Corrections and identify key barriers and challenges for successful reentry. At the end of this presentation, participants can engage in thoughtful discussions regarding practical, real-world solutions to addressing these growing challenges and their impacts on society.
Target:
Family/Parent Partners and Youth Advocates,Direct Care Workers,Administrators,Supervisors/Coaches,Researchers/Analysts,Other: Peer Support/Recovery Specialists, Policy Makers
- Kathleen Totemoff has a BA in Psychology. Katheleen is also the Founder/President of iEXIST, LLC. kathleentotemoff@yahoo.com
Kenneth McGill, EdS LMFT A Solution-Focused Care Senior Scientist at Opeeka in Folsom, California kmcgill@opeeka.com
As a founding jurisdiction in the National Partnership for Child Safety, the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families first planted a seed to utilize Safety Science in child welfare practice through a revamp of our state’s critical incident review process. Since 2018, Safety Science has been incrementally introduced to the state’s child welfare professionals at both the policy and direct practice levels.
Once this new way of viewing child welfare practice had taken root, the SSIT-W (Safe Systems Improvement Tool- Wisconsin) was developed and introduced as a tool to communicate data learned about case practice through the course of critical incident reviews. The tool’s utility was then applied to work done between the department and the state’s licensed child welfare congregate care facilities.
This successful branching out of safe systems work is proving that building a safety culture does not need to and should not remain isolated to critical incident reviews. Since this discovery, there has been an increased desire to apply elements of Safety Science to other programs and projects. The buds of Safety Science are being nurtured department wide, and some have even begun to bloom!
Learning objectives
- Participants will be able to recognize the benefits of utilizing the Safe Systems Improvement Tool (SSIT) in both critical incident reviews and the child welfare licensing setting.
- The workshop will illustrate areas of Wisconsin’s strategic plan that have been strengthened by demonstrating a commitment to a Safe Systems framework.
- Participants will leave the workshop with the necessary skills to distinguish areas of overlap between their own work and principles of safety science.
Target: Direct Care Workers, Administrators, Supervisors/Coaches, Researchers/Analysts
- Lexi Mueller, MSW, APSW, (she/her/hers) has been a Program and Policy Analyst with the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families since 2020. alexandra.mueller1@wisconsin.gov
Description:
WV has three Regional Partnership Grants. These grants focus on retaining children in their homes safely, if a caregiver has a substance use problem, or allowing a caregiver to regain custody of their children once completing the program. The program is based on the wraparound philosophy, so services and outcomes are based on the caregiver, child, and family as a whole. The RPG projects in WV utilize three TCOM tools; the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths Assessment (CANS), the 0-5 year old sub-module for the CANS and the Family Advocacy and Support Tool (FAST) to develop wraparound plans, measure success in the program, and to assist in predicting success when reviewed with other outcome measures, demographics and services data. Care staff worked with clients to establish a personalized care plan and tracked which of the 56 possible services were provided for each member in service logs.
WV partnered with Opeeka to analyze the abundance of data that was collected in the project through their Person-Centered Intelligence Solution System (P-CIS). This presentation will demonstrate the use of the TCOM tools in combination with other data sets to predict success for families with substance use issues. One finding showed that receipt of Employment Training services were significantly associated with completing the RPG program while controlling for factors related to program completion, including age, gender, substance use, and adjustment to trauma symptoms. Participants who receive Employment Training had an 8.4 times increased odds (95%CI 2.0-36.5, p<0.01) of completing the program, while adjusting for other factors related to program completion.
Learning objectives:
• This workshop is designed to demonstrate how the TCOM tools with other assessments and data can predict success for caregivers with substance use issues.
• This workshop will discuss how through a logistic regression success can be predicted.”
Target: Administrators, Researchers/Analysts
Presenters:
- Tammy Pearson Sr. Assoc. Dir. for the Center of Excellence for Recovery Marshall University tpearson@marshall.edu
- Kenneth McGill, EdS LMFT A Solution-Focused Care Senior Scientist at Opeeka in Folsom, California kmcgill@opeeka.com
- Bretlyn Hickman, MSW Evaluation Coordinator Marshall University Research Corporation smith1857@marshall.edu
- Kate Cordell, Ph D, MPH Dr. Kate Cordell, Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder at Opeeka kcordell@opeeka.com
