Webinar Update

Hey there, I need to correct the record. I last wrote that 20 agencies and nearly 250 people participated in our first webinar last week. We learned there 14 agencies and just over 200 people who participated. Still solid numbers. The folks at Interhab tell us they are the best attended webinars they have sponsored. Very promising indeed.

We also learned that while agencies could have registered for any of the four webinars individually all 14 organizations registered for the full series of four.

The sponsoring organization, Interhab of Kansas, is conducting a brief survey we hope people will respond to. We and the folks at Interhab think they are going well. But it would be good to hear directly from those who participated.

It sure is different speaking into a webcam and not being able to see, read or get feedback from the audience, but I shuck it off and think I adjusted well. Hopefully, the survey will tell us they agree.

In webinar #2 eight spectacular Delarc staff joined in with live examples of how they have used the Caring Chain with real people to make a real difference in those people’s lives. All eight did us proud with very thoughtful and effective examples. Again, we hope the surveys confirm this.

Our focus now becomes next week’s webinar Assessing Caring Relationships on May 6. We think this will be a winner. We have developed a form and process for people to use to assess caring in individual staff members. The form is user friendly and people usually like that. And the process is good too. Based on direct observation; not hear say, in several situations; not about a one time mistake. Supervisors will be asked to provide feedback on a number of indicators in 5 key areas including: Language, Interactions / Attentiveness, Promotes Independence, Projects the Attitude and Body Language of Caring, Uses Time Well.

We tested this form with one of our departments and it went very well. We based it on a number of other tools we have developed over the years.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Moving Mountains

In addtion to moving into the world of webinars (see prior entry) another exciting development is we have been notified Delarc’s Life and Career Model has been selected as a winner of the Moving Mountains Best Practice Award. This prestigious award is presented by National Association for Direct Support Professionals (www.nadsp.org) for Delarc’s significant achievement in workforce development.

Award winners are expected to participate in a case study process. On June 14 and 15 a team from the University of Minnesota’s Research and Training Center on Community Living will be visiting Delarc to begin the case study process.

The award will be presented at NADSP’s 2010 Reinventing Quality Conference in August.

Aiyiyiyiyi!

Venturing into the Webinar world

Yesterday The Arc of Delaware County conducted it's first ever webinar. We believe approximately 250 people spread throughout 20 or so agencies across the state of Kansas participated. This was the first of four webinars Interhab of Kansas sponsored. Interhab is a trade association of rehabilitation agencies in Kansas (www.interhab.org). They have approximately 38 member agencies located throughout Kansas. So over half of their members participated. Some had five people in the audience some had over 50.

The Webinar, titled, Introduction to a Positive Approach, was scheduled to last 90 minutes, it ended up going an extra 10 minutes. From our end it seemed to go well. We expect to be talking to the folks at Interhab within the next day or two to hear what they thought.

We have three more webinars scheduled for the next three Thursdays from 11:00 to 12:30. The titles of the next three are:

Webinar #2 Exploring the Caring Chain

Webinar #3 Assessing Caring Relationships

Webinar #4 Effective use of Praise and Reinforcement

If these go well, and we are confident they will, our plan is twofold. First we will continue to offer these and additional webinars through Interhab. Secondly we will begin to market them outside Kansas directly.