Certified Trainers Blog

 Archive for the ‘Allison’s Posts’ Category

Welcome to the herd two new smarty pants…both from Oregon (a very smart place, for sure!).

Susie Walton is the Associate Director for Pathway Enterprises in Medford, Oregon (way, way down south….). She knows LOTS AND LOTS and can lead you through billing and attendance, ISPs, provider administration and most other things you may come up with. I’m waiting on her blog (and dog pictures!).

As you can see above, Susie has excellent taste in friends.

Gina Loraine is of the highest quality…that is ‘cos she is the Training Quality Manager from Dungarvin in Portland, Oregon. She is never in her office as she is always running around teaching people things.

(I understand Gina.)

Gina also is a friend of Archie’s, having pug-sat in Salem…she, as Susie, has excellent taste in friends.

Welcome these guys! They are among the awesomest of the awesome…which would be all SIXTY (yes, I said it) of Therap’s Certified Trainers!

Allison

This morning, Justin did a completely awesome review of the new and upcoming features within Therap that will meet CCHIT standards, as Therap goes for Electronic Health Record (EHR) certification.

We are planning more sessions for certified trainers…so keep a look out!

Allison

Lorelei discusses quality assurance techniques! Very cool indeed!

Check it out! This is the latest in our series….

Allison

and if you are keeping count, that makes 58 certified smarty pants sprawled all over the country. All these comings and goings, who can keep up? That number will change by next week. Promise!

Maggie Paine is the Associate Director (and QMRP) for Allegany Arc in Wellsville, New York. She is their provider administrator, which is no small feat with their hundreds of staff and consumers. They are newer to Therap than some of their other New York neighbors, having used it for about a year so far. Maggie is a whiz with ISPs and all of the New York habilitation plan material. Look out for her as she is a super smarty pants with all of that–my head was spinning.

Shannon Crawford was born and raised in Texas! She is also the FIRST TEXAN to be an official smarty pants as far as Therap is concerned. Shannon is the Regional Therap Coordinator for Mosaic (she is joining her posse, as many Mosaic folks lurk in the halls of Certified Trainer-hood). She has been with Mosaic for eight years in a variety of positions. She also knows this Therap stuff inside and out! (And “Tlog” always sounds better with a Texan accent…)

More coming.

Allison

Heather Thornton is the Program Coordinator for Carmel Community Living Corporation (CCLC) in Boulder, Colorado. She is tenacious! It only took us about three months to finally get together! Heather is an Oklahoma transplant (though you could never tell by her accent!) and has lived outside of Denver for around two years. She handles all of her agency’s training and provider administration. She reports that CCLC is using just about everything except billing (but most likely not for long!). Heather is the second trainer from Colorado, joining Linda Medina as a representative of the Rocky Mountain state.

And she is a Therap queen…like someone else I know (Renee!!!).

Allison

We have a handful of new certified trainers to introduce…They will soon learn the secret handshake! There are several more but they are not official until I get a photo…they must prove their existence before they show up here.

Beverly Eschbach is the SECOND Beverly (our Beverlies are the best!) on the trainers’ gang. She is the Quality Management Coordinator for The Arc of Somerset. She knows tons about individual supports and has been one of their provider administrators since 2009. They are also tinkering with the Training Management System, Personal Finance and getting the MAR on board. She sounds super busy…AND SHE IS THE FIRST NEW JERSEY-AN to be a super Therap nerd. It’s like being an astronaut when you’re first at something…all new territory. One small step for Beverly, but one giant step for Therapkind.

Kristy Dominy is another first! She is from The Jessamine Place in Fitzgerald, Georgia, and is THE FIRST GEORGIAN to join the secret trainerhood. Kristy is their quality assurance nerd so you know she knows what’s up…and it sounds like Jessamine is using EVERYTHING they can find in Therap, including running the pilot for billing in the state of Georgia. She is as busy as Beverly!

David Van Hook is the IT Technician for Living Opportunities in Medford, Oregon. He has been with them for several years and was working as a support person before moving into the IT position. David actually has spent most of his time in the field of technology; Living Opportunities was his first experience in human services. He is presently becoming their central provider administrator, as well as trainer. Right now, he is figuring out the Training Management System…

More to come when they cough up some pictures.

Allison

Kim Champney is from Juneau, Alaska, and she is the latest in a stream of certified trainers. From Alaska. And the world.

Her partner in crime, also from Juneau, Alaska, is Pat Watt, also a certified trainer.

Smarties. (They always hang out in nerdy herds.)

Rob Sterling presently reigns as THE Excel nerd in my life (boy, will I have things to show you once I steal all of his ideas!).

Kim is the Quality Assurance Director for Reach, Inc., and she knows lots of stuff  may know everything. Really. Billing, provider administration, individual supports, Excel, attendance…

(But does she have super powers??…Well, yeah, kinda…that is another story!)

And I am sure she is a very adept blogger as well…I’m waiting.

Allison

Aside from saving my life, Susie Buchanan is ALSO the newest certified trainer! She is the Quality Assurance Specialist for Coast Rehabilitation Services in Warrenton, Oregon.

Tough life…on THE COAST OF OREGON.

Susie has worked in the field for a long time…she may get mad if I told you the dates (but email me if you’re curious!) in residential programs and within school districts.

She is a west coast girl, from California originally, and a bit of a gyspy…having moved from a mountaintop in Colorado back to the coast of Oregon where she has been with CRS for two years.

Watch for her insightful blogs…

Allison

So, the conference was amazing. If you missed it, pfft! Your loss. There is always next year, I suppose.

During that conference, I acquired six new Certified Trainers along the way. I was tripping over smarty pants from all sorts of places but these were the bravest among them!

Pat Watt is the Operations Director for Reach, Inc., in Juneau, AK. I’m pretty sure she knows everything. Really.

John Kincinas is the Director of IT for Garden Center Services in Burbank, IL. He made fast friends with Kristi Davis as they both have a Berner obsession.

Alhaji Jalloh is a program coordinator with St. John’s Community Services in Washington DC (home to gobs of Certified Trainers!). He demonstrates a really fine aptitude with Therap, especially Health Tracking…and puts up with some teasing remarkably well.

Brianne Conner is the Statewide Training Coordinator in New Mexico…no small feat considering THE WHOLE STATE uses Therap. She has assisted over 130 agencies that support close to 4,000 individuals get up to snuff with GERs, Health Tracking, MARs and ‘specially New Mexico-designed, eCHAT. ISPs are loitering on the horizon. Bill Heinecke is Montana’s State Therap Administrator and again, no small feat, given that all of Montana uses Therap. Montana was the second state to mandate Therap across its providers with the use of GERs. For Bill, ISPs are also on the horizon. They are both super smart when it comes to the oversite provider thing and how the systems interact with one another (way trickier and way cooler than it sounds, I promise!).

Rob is the Program and Home Coordinator with FOCUS in Eagle River, AK. He has been helping Andy with some quality assurance techniques when it comes to ISP data, Excel and billing. He made my hair smolder as he talked about the way they are analyzing their data within Excel. I’m scheduling a webinar with him to learn a thing or two.

And these folks are it…for now. Others are standing in line to join the coolest bunch of smarties I know.

PS: I left the east coast and was home late on Sunday, home yesterday and booked all day, and today is the same. Tonight, I’m off to the greater Seattle area with a pug in tow!

Allison