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
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
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.
Friday, January 9, 2009
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!
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!
Monday, December 15, 2008
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.
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.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
The spread of our positive behavioral and proactive management philosophy and approach.
1 Interest in our highly effective proactive philosophy and positive approach continues to grow. On Thursday the 20th we hosted four visitors from the Saratoga County ARC. The visitors included their Executive Director and three members of her executive team. All experienced professional and all very impressed with what they experienced.
When such visitors come to Delarc we don't do the typical tour. Rather they are expected to be here by 8:30 a.m. and to spend their day in our Vantage Point (VP) program. We invented VP in 1992 and since then every new employee spends their first dau of employment as a consumer of services. During the course of the day they are involved in a series of role play experiences that place them in the shoes (or wheelchair) of a person with disabilities and which teach them things new employees want to learn; like the names of their new co-workers.
By 3:00 they have had the experience of a lifetime. Something they will long remember and we hope they never forget. The folks from Saratoga left with a lot to talk about on the drive home and even more to think about as they, like the rest of us, strive to improve the quality of their services and supports.
2 Just before I met with the folks from Saratoga at 3:15 I picked up a phone message asking me to check my email. It was from the state of Georgia and contained a contract to deliver a second year of consulting and training to providers there. During ’08 we have mentored six different agencies for people with disabilities in Atlanta, Breeman, Athens, Augusta, Waycross and Lithonia.
The ’09 contract is to continue that work while adding three more agencies.
3 On December 3 we will have two folks visiting from the Yates County ARC. Their Executive Director and Chief Psychologist visited a couple of months ago and as they build momentum for change they want more of their employees to experience, first hand, our unique philosophy and approach.
4 We are currently developing plans to conduct several Executive 2 day introductory sessions across New York State. They will be sponsored by the NYSARC Executive Directors Association and should be launched in January or February. These Execs and their teams will learn about our Shift Happens and People power Models of Excellence.
I’m quite certain at least several of them will want additional help moving forward.
Stay tuned for further updates.
When such visitors come to Delarc we don't do the typical tour. Rather they are expected to be here by 8:30 a.m. and to spend their day in our Vantage Point (VP) program. We invented VP in 1992 and since then every new employee spends their first dau of employment as a consumer of services. During the course of the day they are involved in a series of role play experiences that place them in the shoes (or wheelchair) of a person with disabilities and which teach them things new employees want to learn; like the names of their new co-workers.
By 3:00 they have had the experience of a lifetime. Something they will long remember and we hope they never forget. The folks from Saratoga left with a lot to talk about on the drive home and even more to think about as they, like the rest of us, strive to improve the quality of their services and supports.
2 Just before I met with the folks from Saratoga at 3:15 I picked up a phone message asking me to check my email. It was from the state of Georgia and contained a contract to deliver a second year of consulting and training to providers there. During ’08 we have mentored six different agencies for people with disabilities in Atlanta, Breeman, Athens, Augusta, Waycross and Lithonia.
The ’09 contract is to continue that work while adding three more agencies.
3 On December 3 we will have two folks visiting from the Yates County ARC. Their Executive Director and Chief Psychologist visited a couple of months ago and as they build momentum for change they want more of their employees to experience, first hand, our unique philosophy and approach.
4 We are currently developing plans to conduct several Executive 2 day introductory sessions across New York State. They will be sponsored by the NYSARC Executive Directors Association and should be launched in January or February. These Execs and their teams will learn about our Shift Happens and People power Models of Excellence.
I’m quite certain at least several of them will want additional help moving forward.
Stay tuned for further updates.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Recruitment and Training
Yesterday I conducted the last of four training sessions with Delarc supervisors. There were two groups and each group participated in two four hour sessions. It had been a few years since this training was offered so the groups contained both fairly new and some well experienced supervisors.
Both groups impressed me in many ways including:
1 All the bright eyes. I didn’t notice one “dud” in the lot. Every single person, 35 in total, actively participated. At one time or another, every single person asked questions, offered opinions and contributed important insights. People were alert and stayed alert.
2 Eager learners. The purpose of the training was to impress upon them the critical importance of their jobs and to increase their mindfulness of key issues. Issues which I need to count on them to continually address in order for our organization to maximize employee productivity and retention; which in turn will lead to the satisfaction of the people we serve and their families and in the longer run accomplish our mission.
At the conclusion of the sessions I was convinced that each person left the room having learned important information, gained important insights and increased the mindfulness we were looking for. They came in with the right mind set and left better equipped and motivated to provide world class levels of coaching and support to our world class staff.
3 The benefit of proper recruitment. This lesson continues to shine through in so many ways. There were several times during the sessions when I couldn’t help think of prior training sessions we have conducted with many different audiences across the country. While there were always bright and motivated people in attendance and while, with humility, I can say there were other, more borderline performers we were able to captivate and bring around, all too frequently there were people in the audience who quite clearly didn’t belong there. In too many cases, they outnumbered those that did belong.
Our emphasis on proper recruitment and selection pays off in so many ways. The caliber of those 35 supervisors proves it once again.
4 The children and adults we support come first. This principle is so simple; yet, so profound. Easy to say; extremely difficult to actualize. It is the bottom line of this organization. The key to that actualization is the partnership between our staff and the people who coach and support them.
I slept well last night (at least until 3:00 when I started thinking about the day ahead) knowing that partnership will be even stronger.
Both groups impressed me in many ways including:
1 All the bright eyes. I didn’t notice one “dud” in the lot. Every single person, 35 in total, actively participated. At one time or another, every single person asked questions, offered opinions and contributed important insights. People were alert and stayed alert.
2 Eager learners. The purpose of the training was to impress upon them the critical importance of their jobs and to increase their mindfulness of key issues. Issues which I need to count on them to continually address in order for our organization to maximize employee productivity and retention; which in turn will lead to the satisfaction of the people we serve and their families and in the longer run accomplish our mission.
At the conclusion of the sessions I was convinced that each person left the room having learned important information, gained important insights and increased the mindfulness we were looking for. They came in with the right mind set and left better equipped and motivated to provide world class levels of coaching and support to our world class staff.
3 The benefit of proper recruitment. This lesson continues to shine through in so many ways. There were several times during the sessions when I couldn’t help think of prior training sessions we have conducted with many different audiences across the country. While there were always bright and motivated people in attendance and while, with humility, I can say there were other, more borderline performers we were able to captivate and bring around, all too frequently there were people in the audience who quite clearly didn’t belong there. In too many cases, they outnumbered those that did belong.
Our emphasis on proper recruitment and selection pays off in so many ways. The caliber of those 35 supervisors proves it once again.
4 The children and adults we support come first. This principle is so simple; yet, so profound. Easy to say; extremely difficult to actualize. It is the bottom line of this organization. The key to that actualization is the partnership between our staff and the people who coach and support them.
I slept well last night (at least until 3:00 when I started thinking about the day ahead) knowing that partnership will be even stronger.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Geraldo Rivera Takes on the Waiting List Crisis!
January 6, 2009 hour-long news special to focus on the emerging crisis for people with intellectual disabilities and their families.
Visibly moved by comments from self-advocates, family members and chapter leaders at the Opening Plenary Session of The Arc's 2008 National Convention, renowned television journalist, Geraldo Rivera, electrified the audience, pledging that on January 6, 2009 - the anniversary of his expose about Willowbrook - he will present a one-hour news special to shine light on the current crisis facing people with disabilities and their families - the Waiting List.
While in Delaware County our waiting list is short, most parts of the country are experiencing long severe waits. It is not at all uncommon for parents in their eighties to still be caring for their adult child in their homes. These parents have been heard to say they can’t die since there will be no one to care for their child.
The Arc US has long advocated for a national response to the waiting list crisis. With Geraldo’s help perhaps the message will get through and states will be moved to act to end these terribly long waits that all too many families are enduring. Look for the special on January 6.
Visibly moved by comments from self-advocates, family members and chapter leaders at the Opening Plenary Session of The Arc's 2008 National Convention, renowned television journalist, Geraldo Rivera, electrified the audience, pledging that on January 6, 2009 - the anniversary of his expose about Willowbrook - he will present a one-hour news special to shine light on the current crisis facing people with disabilities and their families - the Waiting List.
While in Delaware County our waiting list is short, most parts of the country are experiencing long severe waits. It is not at all uncommon for parents in their eighties to still be caring for their adult child in their homes. These parents have been heard to say they can’t die since there will be no one to care for their child.
The Arc US has long advocated for a national response to the waiting list crisis. With Geraldo’s help perhaps the message will get through and states will be moved to act to end these terribly long waits that all too many families are enduring. Look for the special on January 6.
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