ACEs Too High | Saving Our Children By the Time Dessert Comes
Several years ago I had the unique opportunity of having dinner with Dr. John Anda and Dr. Sandra Bloom, both pioneers when it comes to trauma and trauma informed care. It was a special experience, of course, with enlightening conversation. With dinner companions such as these, it’s not surprising that we began questioning why the ACEs […]
Welcome Aboard | 7 Tips for Clinic Human Resources & Clinic Engagement
Clinic human resources means coordinating benefits, learning computer log-ons, and filling out paperwork. This can often be the focus as employees come aboard a new agency. While important, these tasks can cause us to forget how critical the first days at a new job are. They greatly impact new employees and their transition processes. It’s […]
Finding Your Ideal Central Intake Worker: See Sample Job Posting
Searching for a new employee can be one of the most frustrating parts of managing an organization. It can be a long process – one that has a significant impact on the success and efficiency of your clinic. Central Intake, a method that helps you manage patients seeking services, makes your clinic run smoother. It […]
Behavioral Health Outcomes in Client and Data Driven Cultures Faceoff
I do remember social work school-it wasn’t that long ago. There was a lot of talk about feelings; about engagement and nonjudgmental interactions; about clients. However, there was not a lot of talk about data. As agencies and therapists have changed, many have asked why data is important when there are clients to worry about. These two […]
Caffeine & Central Intake Calls: A Day in the Life of Sal the Floor General
Meet Sal Sal arrived at the clinic for work Wednesday morning clutching his morning coffee. He greeted the already busy clinicians as they were rushing past him to prepare for their days. He made his way to the front desk and relieved the worker who had been manning the phone throughout the night. Sal’s clinic […]
Without proper staffing, open access crumbles like a game of Tetris
I love Tetris. There’s something incredibly satisfying about figuring out exactly where each little block fits best into the big picture. Yet, it can also be stressful (or maybe I’m just taking it too seriously). Misplacing one block can throw you off enough that another block is misplaced, and then another block until it’s game […]
Who You Gonna Call? Central Intake! 3 Expectations for Intake Calls
Like the Ghostbusters team in the original 1984 movie, your clinic’s central intake office is the first call when a consumer is seeking help. A central intake process is one where clinics have one trained individual answering phones and assessing callers to see what treatment plan works best for them. Callers can be extremely vulnerable […]
Open Access: Opening the Door to a More Efficient Clinic
The best time to start a client in treatment is the moment they are ready. Open Access strategies reduce the time between when a client is ready and when treatment begins to zero! What it is, and is not When used effectively, Open Access opens the door to a more efficient operating process by increasing […]
Technology as a Second Language: Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks
Like most others, I took English in elementary school. It wasn’t that hard, after all I had been practicing for quite a while. In high school, I tried a little French. Not as easy, but I got through it. In social work school, they were ready to teach me a new language as well. It […]
Trauma Informed Care Influences Service Delivery and Staff Retention
I was first exposed to the notion of Trauma Informed/Trauma Sensitive agency cultures in 2006 by Sandra Bloom, the creator of the Sanctuary Model. Her words and books about the Sanctuary model completely changed the way I looked at mental health programs and the challenge of fighting burnout and staff turnover. Eleven years later, it’s […]