Geat teamwork. It must be luck!

The Delarc Team is amazing. I have never taken it for granted and always expect the best; yet it continues to surprise and delight. It doesn’t matter what the task or situation, they always respond with excellence and they do so with a smile.

Recently they provided a unique experience for a group of local sixth graders, rallied round an individual we support who was going through an extremely stressful home situation and prepared for a Medicaid audit; all while providing top notch service to children and adults in Delaware County and mentoring several other agencies in New York and Georgia. Simply amazing!

The audit will be happening over the new few weeks, so we’ll have to wait to see how that makes out. But the sixth graders were thrilled and the fellow who was having such difficulty is doing fine, the children and adults we support are thriving and the organizations with whom we are working are thrilled.

What makes for such excellence? Sometimes I think we are the luckiest organization ever. And while I’m just superstitious enough not to deny its random power, I have always believed you make your luck.

Inc. magazine, in this month’s issue (April ’09) features an interview with Jim Collins, author of Good to Great and Built to Last. In the interview he says, “I see nothing to contradict the principle that who comes first and what comes second, for a very simple reason: If you cannot predict the what, you have to be able to do a good job with the who, because the what is going to be constantly shifting.”

When he was asked what he meant by doing a good job with the who, he asked the following question. “Do you have a culture of people who A. share a set of values, B. have very clear responsibilities, and C. perform.”

Mr. Collins’ formula has been the one the Delarc Team has been committed to for over 30 years. It was one of the first organizations in the U.S. to put it’s core values, which it calls its Unifying Principles, in writing back in the 80’s. Since then it has methodically built those values into every practice and process and has gone to extravagant lengths to assure all new hires share them.

It transformed all it job descriptions to be outcome not duty oriented. Expectations are further clarified daily through well trained coaches and weekly through individual sit down meetings with their immediate supervisor. Performance is measure through a unique tool it developed called the Stages of Employee Development within the first week of employment, at 30 and 90 days and at least annually thereafter.

Find recruits who share your values, clarify your expectations, provide world class coaching and measure performance objectively and consistently and I guess luck will follow.

Shout It From The Rooftops!

The Arc of Delaware County is totally committed to a positive, proactive approach in our care and treatment of people with disabilties. Unfortunately there are many agencies across the country that don't share our beliefs; please take a moment to check out the link below and you will see just one more example of such. We frequently hear of physical abuses and even deaths of people with disabilites because of the care and treatment they receive by the people whose care they are entrusted to.

Though the information in the link is very troubling to hear, it's important for us to keep this in front of people - it's time for America to get their heads out of the sand and really know what is happening in this country to people with disabilities. Our agency spends a great deal of time and engergy trying to spread the word that there is a better way; our CEO does trainings for any agency in the country who is willing to listen. We need your help though - together we can raise awareness and help people know there really is a better way. I encourage you to help us spread the word - share this information with everyone you know.

I'll leave you with one thought: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." ~ Margaret Mead

Link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101937985

Thank you.
Catherine Tweedie,
Delarc Community Relations Director

Positive Behavioral Supports

Two Delarc heroes.

During the week of February 15 to 20, Chief Operating Officer, Barbara Rothenberg and Life Coach 10, Sharon Klinger achieved remarkable results in Delarc’s efforts to find practical ways to assist others committed to supporting people with developmental disabilities.

During our visit to two different agencies, one on Monday and Tuesday the other on Wednesday and Thursday, Barb and Sharon spent their first day shadowing an individual chosen by each agency due to the significant challenge each was presenting. We asked them to pick their toughest case.

In one case this included starting at 6:45 A.M. in the person’s home. At the end of the day and into the evening they then devised the approach they would demonstrate the next day. Lesson plans were written as were behavior plans which included reinforcement types and schedules.

The next morning was spent delivering instruction to the particular individual and teaching layers of staff to do the same. Sharon took the lead with instruction as Barb coached staff.

One of the things that distinguishes Delarc is our belief that Directors, in addition to being good administrators, must be excellent teachers. With this in mind, after they observed Sharon and with Barb’s support, the respective directors then took over for Sharon. They followed the lesson plan and learned how to use lavish reinforcement for and planned ignoring. Next came the next supervisor and the next. Finally, direct support staff took their turn.

By noon the individual’s team was prepared to continue the lesson the next day. During the afternoon debrief questions were answered, further detail provided so what they learned could be generalized to other individuals.

At our next stop Wednesday and Thursday, we followed the same process with a different individual. In both cases the results were remarkable. Behaviors were nearly eliminated and the people actively participated in the lessons Barb and Sharon devised.
Simply amazing.

As part of our project we conduct conference calls with the Action Teams of all the organizations every 6 weeks or so. Yesterday we had one and parties from both of those organizations participated and reported to the rest of the group what had occurred and the results they saw. At one point I asked if we showed up today and asked for their toughest cases, if they would choose these two people and in both cases they answered a resounding NO!

Simply amazing. No wonder Barb and Sharon are my heroes!!

Good Teaching and Engagement.

Rafe Esquith is a 5th grade public school teacher in Los Angeles and the only teacher ever to receive the National Medal of the Arts award. His latest book is: Teach Like Your Hair is on Fire. We are ordering it for our library. Sign up now to read it.

At one point in the interview he said something that rang a loud bell for me. He said part of his philosophy is “put more food on the table and everyone will find something they like to eat.”

At Delarc we call it person-centered engagement. A rose by any other name, stills smells as sweet.

I believe this demonstrates, one more time, our philosophy and approach is state of the art. You are doing what the best of the best in the world are doing. The people you support are receiving the benefits and that is something of which we should all be proud.

I am looking for a volunteer or two to read the book and advise us of what they discover.Let me know if you are interested. Thanks

Training again

We’re off and running again in Georgia!

On Tuesday January 13, we kicked off our new contract with the State of Georgia. This is the second contract with them. This year we will be continuing our work with 4 agencies and adding 3 new one to the mix. On Tuesday we conducted an overview session for Georgia providers to help them decide if they want to apply to be one of the three new agencies. There were approximately 75 people present. And id sounded like several agencies plan to submit an application.

Today, was day one of a two day visit to one of last year’s agencies. There is a team of three of us here and two of our staff spent the day observing the program in action and in particular focused on one individual who presents a particular challenge. It is now 7:30 pm and they are meeting to compare their notes and to develop their recommendations for improvement which we will present tomorrow. At the end of the day we also provided Time Management training to a number of their staff which we will continue and conclude tomorrow afternoon.

Exhausting but excellent.

Board Relations and the Shift Happens Model

Earlier this week I meet with the President of our Board of Directors regarding our upcoming Board meeting and a few other Board matters. As the meeting was starting he said that there was something he had been reading he wanted to read me. It comes from the book, Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card. He read the following to me:

Soldiers who did good work did not have special privileges and were given no special authority, so they were not resented by the others. The praise was not effusive, so it never embarrassed them. Instead, they were admired by the others, and emulated. And the focus of the soldiers became the earning of Bean’s recognition.

That was true power. Frederick the Great’s dictum that soldiers had to fear their officers more than they feared the enemy was stupid. Soldiers needed to believe they had the respect of their officers, and to value that respect more than they valued life itself. Moreover, they had to know that their officers’ respect was justified--that they really were the good soldiers their officers believed them to be.


When he was done he said that as he was reading this passage “It dawned on me that this is what Delarc is about and I wanted to share it with you.” A very interesting observation and one I wanted to share with you.

This is great on a number of levels and I would like you to think about it. Do you agree? Disagree? Do you see this applying to the people we support? To our subordinate staff?

How great is it that someone from our Board would see something in print, think of us and then take the time to point it out.

Great stuff!

Measurement … a dilemma

We often are asked about the effectiveness of our training. How do we know it works? What data can we provide to convince them our training will be right for them? This is expected and is a thoroughly legitimate and respected question. Our usual response is that we have not figured out how to measure it. We explain that we are practitioners not researchers and that while we totally support the accountability that is measurement, we just haven’t figured out what we should be measuring or how to do it.

The people who ask the question are those who have not experienced it. And that is reasonable. However, it is interesting no one who has ever experienced the training has worried about it. Instead they leave, thoroughly excited and motivated to use the tools we give them to make the changes they determine are necessary in their organizations. And they report positive results. It is also very interesting that no paying customer has ever asked us to honor our long standing 100% money back guarantee. Quite the contrary; they usually either ask us for more or recommend us to others.

That’s all well and good but the question remains and we are committed to answering it. In 2008, we approached several relevant parties to assist us in the effort and all fell through for different reasons.

Some research has led us to ask the following: should we be measuring the effectiveness of our training in terms of the competencies or skills those leaving the training attain or should we be measuring what they do with those skills when they get back on job? Is our job to give them a process, tools and supports and theirs to make a measurable difference?

We don’t have an answer but we are committed to finding one. If you can help, let us know. If you just want to add your two cents, that’s OK too.

We will keep you posted.