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 many questions for me to ask. I have no idea how to use this during the assessment process (or, I already know how to do an assessment, so I don’t need anyone to tell me how to do it).” The implementation of a new tool or resource is often perceived by those who are expected to use it as, alternately, overwhelming, stressful, confusing, frustrating, demoralizing, and so on. This is why in October 2018, at the TCOM conference, we took it upon ourselves to see if we could provide an example of how to use the CANS effectively and seamlessly in practice.
The idea was to show how to bring the CANS to life as a process—not a document—and to demonstrate how the key principles are intertwined with the assessment process. We did not introduce a new way to do an assessment, but rather a new way to name and organize the information that is already collected during an assessment.
The way we did this was to use a short video of a mock assessment, breaking it into three sections and actively engaging our audience in identifying which needs and strengths had been identified during each section, and which principles were being used during the assessment. We pointed out that you can learn a great deal of information in 10 minutes without asking much, or with some prompting – no need to go through every item and ask about it. The discussion focused on what actionable needs and what useful strengths were observed, what key components were evident, how this was similar or different from how they currently did an assessment, and how they might use this information to improve their current method of assessing using the CANS. The feedback we received overall was that attendees found this to be a useful resource for them. They identified how it could be used or adapted both in assessment and in training staff on assessment. We hope you will find it helpful too!
To access the materials that we provided attendees – training video, training guide and activity worksheet—please click here:
- Training Guide
- Training Handout
- Training Video–Thank you to Niki Grajewski and Nicole Tippy, actors for this video, and Dan Balchen (director for this video).
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This post was collaboratively written by
Lynda K. Killoran, MA, LCPC
Clinical Manager, Centerstone of Illinois
Lynn Steiner, MSW
Senior Policy Analyst, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago
Deborah Thomas, LCSW
Clinical Manager, Centerstone of Illinois