Kevin's Blog

One of the often unrecognized challenges we face in our field is the challenge to help individuals across every aspect of their lives.  Home, Community, Recreation, Social, and on and on and on.  I’ll be the first to admit I am not as good at supporting some types of individual goals as others.  Different personalty types and cultural backgrounds can present more challenges.  Let use our strengths of focusing on what people are good at to support our staff to be even more successful.

How about using  QA reports to track the outcomes of a group of Individuals under each supervisor?  Does one supervisor have more of one type of goal than anyone else?  Or do certain goals get accomplished faster under one supervisor than another?  With Therap I can see several ways this can easily be accomplished with just one or two report runs, without Therap I could only dream that someday I might have the time to figure this out.

Finding the strengths of your Supervisors can help make the right match and help your agency be that much more effective.   This can also become part of your Performance Reviews.   Anyone have any examples to share?

I had a great time in Fresno, although I had no time to look around.  This town is huge and has so much going on.  I was able to meet with lots of folks that are using Therap already we did some fun Q&A sessions and helped some folks take their Therap use to the next level.  We also did some training and mapping to help some folks get started using Therap, and a few you are getting started in the next couple of weeks.  I had so much fun talking with everyone there.  I started the week off trying to recover from a cold.  A special thanks to Jen at CCMRS for providing me with some freshly squeezed California Grapefruit.  Only problem is now my bottled juice I get here at home tastes terrible in comparison.  You guys are lucky to have all that fresh produce literally on every corner.  I got some oranges that also carried me through my trip.  I was loaded with vitamin C, and helping to spread the Vitamin T (Therap) 

I will be back in Fresno soon and with all the things going on don’t be surprised to see more happening there soon!  Thanks Fresno Friends!

I am thoroughly enjoying spending time with current Therap users and future Therap users here in California.  Started my day in Oakland California.  Downtown Oakland has some beautiful old buildings, very nice to see them fixed up.  Spent time with my friends at Alegria and learned about more about the great work they are doing and helping them get even more out of their Therap system.

Also got to spend some time with folks down here in San Jose.  Silicon Valley has some amazing innovations going on, and some folks there are enjoying the solutions Therap provides for them.  Looking forward to spending some more time with my friends at California Community Opportunities.

If I am not seeing you on this trip, I will definitely see you next time which will be soon.  Keep an eye out for some of our staff in the area soon as well.

Do you have a staff person(s) that is resisting making the transition  over to Therap?  Well your the only one….Just kidding.  As with any change everyone adapts in their own way.  Perhaps they are opposed to open and clear communication, or maybe they like dealing with paperwork rather than people, or maybe  they don’t value their time and want to spend hours wading through staff notes to create reports, maybe they don’t believe in quality, or….OK sarcasm may help me retain my sanity but it is probably not the best way to lead and support my staff. 

Here are some better options based on proven leadership strategies:

1. Identify how Therap aligns with your agency values, then practice what you preach.  If you value clear communication set the example by increasing the amount of communication between you and your staff using Therap.

2. Establish a clear vision for life after implementation.  Make sure everyone knows how this is going to help your agency remain strong and viable now and in the future.

3. Be open to real concerns from staff, help staff separate out real challenges from resistance.  Share responsibility for identifying solutions.

4. Foster ownership of Therap through team meetings and implementation committees.   Therap’s “Approval” role allows for the delegation of some taksa you might not have been comfortable releasing in your paper system.  In Therap nothing can slip bye without Approval allowing you to increase staff’s responsibilities and support them to rise to the next level.

5. Celebrate success big and small. Often time a small bump in the road overshadows a whole lot of great work.  Don’t let it.  I suggest a Therap party wear orange, get an orange cake, and orange sherbert!

Use sarcasm in moderation (I am working  on this one myself).  And don’t forget to reach out to our amazing support team for help.  They have seen it all before.

Be on the look out for Therap User Groups meeting near you.  We know it is not always feasible to get over to one of our many Conferences, although I hope you have blocked out time for our big California Conference down in San Diego in early December.  I’ll keep you updated.

So we also will continue doing local User Group meetings to help keep you in the loop, and now that we have lots of folks using Therap all over California that means lots more stops for myself and our team.

User Groups are like mini conferences.  For current Therap users it a chance to get updated on new things Therap is doing, get some higher level training, and best of all have discussions with other users in your area to share and learn.

For folks that are getting ready to use Therap or want to learn what this is all about, it is a great way to get up to speed fast and learn why Therap is much more than just an amazing, fantacular electronic system that solves all your problems today and has already solved some of your future problems you don’t even know about yet. 

So get yourself in the loop, block out a little time to become more awesome and join in a User group when it comes your way.

User Group Meeting

Date: Monday March 12, 2012
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact: Kevin Dierks if you would like to participate

For Local Users and Interested Agencies from the surrounding area including:
-Golden Gate Regional Center
-East Bay Regional Center
-North Bay Regional Center
-Valley Mountain Regional Center
-Alta California Regional Center
-San Andreas Regional Center

User Group Meeting

Date: Wednesday March 14, 2012
Location: Fresno, CA
Contact: Kevin Dierks if you would like to participate

For Local Users and Interested Agencies from the surrounding area including:
-Central Valley Regional Center
-Valley Mountain Regional Center
-Kern Regional Center

User Group Meeting

Date: March 29
Location: Los Angeles, CA

Contact: Kevin Dierks if you would like to participate

Date: March 30
Location: Orange County, CA

Contact: Kevin Dierks if you would like to participate

For Local Users and Interested Agencies from the surrounding area including:
-Orange Regional Center
-Inland Regional Center
-Westside Regional Center
-East Los Angeles Regional Center
-South Central Regional Center
-Harbor Regional Center
-Lanterman Regional Center
-San Gabriel Pomona Regional Center

I am still reeling from the excitement of our Conference last week. This may sound exaggerated, but if you were there, and somewhere between 350 to 400 of you were, you know what I mean.  Therap is at a level we have never been at before, but if you know us that is a daily reality as we never stop moving forward carefully, according to plan, but onward and upward we go with all of you.

It was also great having a contingency of Therap Users folks from California, Alaska, and Hawaii.  We had some great discussions and more than a few Aha! moments.  I am always amazed at how many problems Therap solves.  I am also very proud at how simply using the Therap system supports agencies to evolve to a higher manifestation of themselves.  Everyone who uses Therap soon finds they do what they do better than they did before and in ways they could not see before.  Having all that information at your fingertips helps you truly see yourself in new ways.

Thanks to all of you for making this such a great event.  If you could not make it start planning for next year or head over to one of our Regional Conferences, such as San Diego in December.  You can also keep an eye out for one of our User groups n your area, a smaller more locally focused discussion and learning on using Therap to its fullest potential.

See you soon!

Do yourself a favor and more importantly help individuals needing assistance with their medications get exactly what they need to maintain or improve their health.  Therap’s MAR (Medication Administration Record) is proven to reduce the number of medication errors and the number of documentation errors commonly occurring in our hectic work environment.

1. Therap’s MAR is linked to a National Drug Data bank continually updated with prescription and over the counter medications.  Avoid inputting errors because they system will only show you the medications and dosages that are available.

2. Schedule the times for each medication and then pull up due or overdue medications before they become an Incident Report and jeopardize someone’s health.

3.Get alerts for missed or refused medications.

4. Lock the MAR for entry and alert the appropriate staff person so changes can be reviewed by two sets of eyes.

5. In addition to Scheduled and PRN Medications you can also track Scheduled and PRN Treatments, such as repositioning, Range of Motion, etc.

6.  View a picture of the individual and a picture of the medication when administering medication, and see clearly color coded options and history.

7. Add comments right within the entry to explain unusual circumstances, and even print out paper copies for travel.

Therap’s MAR will save you a lot of time, but even more importantly to us here at Therap, it will help the people you serve stay healthy and avoid unnecessary complications to their lives.

I managed to get up on top of the cliffs behind my house this weekend.  What a rush!  The Windward Side is such a beautiful place.  Looking forward to seeing the East Side of our country very soon at the Therap National Conference.  Of you have never been I can assure you there is nothing like it in our field.  Take every major challenge your agency deals with about your day to day operations.  At the National Conference you will find the people who have already solved it, and you will get a step by step walk through of how to do it yourself.  I believe I saw that over 35 different States will be represented. Can’t wait to get more knowledge!

I have been tracking the weather and it looks like highs in the 40′s are projected.  Good thing most of the action is in the Hotel!  Hope to see you there.  If not this year then make sure you plan for next year.

Ever have a day where you wish you could just be a volunteer in your own agency, get to hang out and work with all the great people you support without having to deal with all the administrative headaches. 

An interesting and challenging part of our field is that most of us who became passionate about our work by the time we spent providing direct care services and just living life with some amazing individuals with disabilities.   When your responsibilities increase you often lose out on the many small moments that are so amazing and powerful in the lives of people we serve and the profound impact they have on our own lives.

Therap is helping Mark, Director of Community Services at  Toolworks in San Francisco regain this connection by being able to keep up with things in real time.

“I call Therap T-log’s my window into the world of client services here at Toolworks” -Mark