KMFC Meeting and KADSP Meeting
The Arc, 2919 West 2nd
Wichita, Kansas
Thursday, April 13, 2006 10 am – 3 pm

In Attendance Bonnie Duden, Sarah Emrick, Pattie Knauff, Bobbie Keller, Tracy (Melte) Price, Gary Merklein, Kelly Smith, Kathy Stiffler, Kathy Olson, Marcia Dechand, Marsha Dill, Judy Leiker, Mary Jo Temple Barb Bishop (replacing Angie Renkin), Balinda Roldan (replacing Marcie Grace).

New Direct Support Professionals: Kevin Harmon, (Starkey), Judy Ballew (Class), Joletta "Jodi" Keith (DSNWK)

Direct Support Professionals joined the KMFC discussion. Their input was essential in developing our plans. Each of the DSPs who attended has been involved in CDS.

Revised Realistic Job Previews provided compliments of Amy Hewitt distributed. These RJPs include much of the previous footage, with vocational and children added. The listed price is $125 for DVD and $110 for VHS. Kathy will check to see if there is still a discount for Kansas for the repackaged RJP.

Moving Mountains Award Kathy Stiffler reported on the Reinventing Quality Conference and the activities surrounding the award ceremony in California. The Award was viewed by all. We actually have two awards. One had a small typo and a replacement was sent.

Shelly May provided information about possible options for presenting the governor with the award. We decided to schedule and appointment to present Governor Sebelius with the award and it will become property of the State of Kansas and will be displayed in the ceremonial Governor's office. We do not get the award back.

We hope to meet with her in the ceremonial office and present it there. We could still get pictures with the Governor, and we can invite media. If this is scheduled we will have a representative group of KMFC members present. They should represent the geographic and professional diversity of the group.

When contacted, the Governor’s office suggested that we meet with Gary Daniels and Jennifer Crow to meet with us to accept the honor. No plans have been confirmed as of yet. We will discuss this on an upcoming call.

Bonnie Duden has had a media press notice developed that can be adapted for use in local newspapers. We encourage local coverage for the great efforts that members have put forth to earn the award. Each organization is deserving of recognition. Contact Kathy Stiffler to borrow an award for a photo opportunity.

Workforce Center resource Kathy Stiffler discussed a support she has recently become aware of. Offered by the local workforce center, JobFit is a service offered where each agency can identify skill strengths and focus areas for selected positions. It is done agency by agency, position by position. It can help in recruiting and supervising staff.

College of Direct Support –if Funded

SRS considerations

Timeline to start CDS across the state

It is important to get going as soon as funding is secure. It takes time to set up agency training plans, technology, and policies. It would be great if we can be up and running by July 1st. Kathy Olson and others volunteered to work on this before formal funding is in place. We may want to have an administrator meeting in June to help people prepare to use CDS.

Administrator for CDS

If CDS is going to take off, the administrator needs to be someone who is familiar with the content and possibilities of CDS. CDS is a great tool. However, users need to know the various ways that it can be used. The group recommends that KUCDD continue to serve as administrator, if possible. It would be difficult for SRS to do this without prior experience.

Participating agencies

SRS providing information to providers KU and KMFC will help develop information.

QEC to share CDS information

Enlisting QECs to provide information about CDS is one way to reach more affiliates quickly

DSPs as advocates

Kevin Harmon, spoke eloquently about how helpful CDS is with undertanding his DSP job and dealing with challenges encountered in providing support. DSPs should play a major role in advocating for their peers to use CDS. It can be really valuable not just another required training. DSP voices can be powerful in getting CDS adopted.

Self –Advocates

Persons who coordinate support are individuals to target for training.

No mandate to use CDS

CDS should not be mandated. Providers may have difficulty in switching to on-line training. It takes time. Some providers are ready others need time. Internet access may be a problem for some sites.

College of Frontline Supervision might be a good starting place for some organizations.

Parsons State Hospital is interested in training.

Big Issues which organizations will need to consider when using CDS

• Are organizations saving money using CDS?
• We need to show that this is a cost-effective method of training.
• We need to determine what measures could be effective. We should check with others who are examining this (i.e. .University of Minnesota)
• Consistency of training material
• Technology- Users need to plan for CDS use
• Space
• Specifications for using CDS
• Speaker/headphone
• Policy per agency
• Layers for filtering data for admin purposes
• Agency related policies
• Tracking time spent
• How to pay for staff training time

Issues related to identifying the amount of time for CDS and paying for training completed off site was discussed. This is challenging. The learners may take varying amounts of time to complete a module. Some learners take notes throughout the lesson. This takes time but can be great for learning. A clock for each module could help but it is recognized that individuals could be distracted during the lesson and time thus recorded when training was not occurring. Our goal is effective training not hours spent learning.

• Is training required or voluntary?

  Starkey is using incentives for training. This has been effective

• Where (location)
• Procedures per agency
• Subadministrator
• Check access to reports
• Inactive staff records
• Check how these are managed in the system
• Is training tied to an increase in wages?
• Incentives
• Ad Astra

• How do we promote certification and/or apprenticeship?

  We want to support the development of the DSP as a career. Ad Astra is one way to do this. Training in a less structured approach is less likely to regularly result in the high quality professional we envision as a DSP. When CDS is adopted we would like to see Ad Astra spread to more organizations. Ad Astra requires a commitment to increase wages based on training and also mentoring, experience and portfolio componets in addition to the related instruction.

Plans

Kathy Stiffler will encourage Brian Bolen to sit down with her and review some of the CDS options and opportunities. Kathy Olson and other KMFC members are also available to engage in discussions with SRS. We will discuss any of the issues of interest and use our experience to make adoption of CDS as easy as possible.

Kathy Olson will contact CDS.

Arrangements for preview can me made. Contact Kathy Olson CDS representatives are willing to travel to Kansas to promote CDS use if we want to hold a state kick off event.

Planning will be done via conference call prior to the next meeting

Next KMFC Meeting – June 22, 2006 10 am – 3pm
Individual Support Systems, Inc 3615 SW 29th, Suite 201, Topeka, Kansas

Adjourn – 3 pm

Post- Meeting Review of completed Ad Astra Portfolios and plans for CAP level

• Three individual portfolios were reviewed and DSPs were awarded the Certificate of Initial Proficiency.
• A need to identify the related instruction for the CAP level was discussed. We will explore what other states are doing in this area and see when new CDS courses will be available as well as consider existing curricula.