From Wednesday, October 17 through Friday, October 19, Rachel Wentink, Vice President, Operations, and Mary Kruger, Client Training Coordinator, will attend the National Crisis Center Conference in St. Louis, Missouri.
The conference theme is “Gateway to Gold: Setting the Standard” with a focus on best practices for optimum success of the attending organizations and their clients. This year’s conference will offer sessions in two tracks focused either on Systems or Centers, with several workshops that satisfy both.
There’s no better group to speak to best practices than the two entities presenting this conference, CONTACT USA (CUSA) and the National Association of Crisis Organization Directors (NASCOD). Both organizations have a phenomenal history of supporting crisis work and we recommend considering membership for your service if you are a helpline, warmline, crisis center, suicide prevention service, or similar organization. By joining them you’ll discover fantastic networking and knowledge sharing from caring individuals who can relate to your day-to-day joys and challenges as a manager or executive director of a not-for-profit. Find out more about CUSA membership here and NASCOD membership here.
Our history with this group and conference is our longest association, going way back to iCarol’s earliest days, and many of the helplines and crisis centers who host this conference were some of iCarol’s earliest users. It’s a long standing relationship that we value and we’re proud to not only attend but are also long-term sponsors of this important gathering organized by pillars of the helpline industry.
As with all conferences we attend, we welcome the opportunity to connect with old friends and new ones. We’re eager to hear about your latest projects and discuss ways iCarol can support you and the needs of your community. Both Mary and Rachel will be on hand throughout the conference to answer your questions and talk about how iCarol can help. We look forward to seeing you!
Our next webinar, titled “Building a United Crisis Line Team in Times of Diverse Need,” will be held on Tuesday, February 6th at 2pm EST.
With the stress of crisis call content and increasing volume as well as an expanding spectrum of needs being addressed, it can be difficult to know how best to unify your team and provide them with ample support, supervision and training, while also addressing your own operations, adequate scheduling, and volunteer/staff development.
This webinar, led by Rebecca Stock and Johanna Louie of the Suicide Prevention Center at Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, will guide crisis center managers and supervisors through addressing these challenges. Attendees of this webinar will learn about expanding the skillsets of their staff and volunteers so that a wide array of topics can be addressed by them on calls and chats, ensuring that the most vulnerable populations are well served. Our presenters will also take us through how to balance the management of day-to-day operations with the needs of the volunteer or staff crisis workers. We’ll also discuss how to pair data and manager expertise to plan for operational and staffing needs. The tools we discuss will accelerate crisis lines’ abilities to balance meeting the increasing demand of people in crisis while caring for a vulnerable team of crisis counselors.
Our Presenters:
Rebecca Stock joined Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services in 2007 as a Volunteer Suicide Prevention Counselor and since then has become a Supervisor and is now the Program Coordinator for the 24-Hour Crisis Line. As Program Coordinator, Rebecca provides direct supervision of the Shift Supervisors and Crisis Line Counselors and oversees the daily operations of the crisis line. A large part of Rebecca’s duties include interfacing with related community agencies and local colleges, attending meetings with the Department of Social Services, participating in various outreach events. Being part of the Suicide Crisis Line for over 10 years, Rebecca has been trained in ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) and plays a large role in providing training for new Volunteer Crisis Counselors. In January 2017, Rebecca completed her Masters in Counseling specializing in Marriage and Family Therapy. Rebecca has been touched by losing someone to suicide when in high school and has wanted to erase the stigma since then.
Johanna Louie started at Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services as a Volunteer Crisis Line Counselor in 2013. Currently, she is the Online Crisis Services Program Coordinator and oversees the chat and text services. She is passionate about utilizing technology to break down barriers to mental health services. Johanna is data driven and utilizes her prior experience in consumer insights at The Walt Disney Company to leverage analytics in making operational decisions for the Crisis Line. Her experiences in crisis services also include involvement with the Emergency Shelter Program at Center for the Pacific Asian Families, the Mayor’s Crisis Response Team as well as The Trevor Project. She holds a Master of Science in Human Behavior from the University of Southern California and is currently pursuing her Master of Social Work from Columbia University.
We hope you can join us for this informative webinar. To find out more and register, click the button below.
The skills and natural abilities that make us great listeners, social workers, and mental health advocates don’t always lend themselves to making us naturally at ease in management roles. Yet, at the heart of every thriving behavioral health organization is a strong and well-functioning team, and these teams often do not exist without adaptive leadership and effective management. As the demands on managers increase and access to resources becomes more elusive, the team’s ability to deliver on its performance indicators becomes even more crucial to program success.
Simply put — you can’t adequately deliver services, maintain funding for your program, and ensure quality performance, enthusiasm and job satisfaction among your staff without effective managers.
We hope you can join us for our next webinar on this topic, scheduled for January 9, 2018 at 1pm EST:
Practicing Effective Management presented by Sarah Bowman and Travis Atkinson of TBD Solutions.
What You’ll Learn:
In this webinar, we’ll provide tangible keys to effective management through strong working relationships, performance communication, delegation, and professional growth. We expect that by joining us you will:
Learn the four critical behaviors of effective managers: knowing your people, communicating about performance, pushing work down, and growing your people.
Understand benefits and challenges of managing people in a mission-driven organization.
Learn how to proactively address the most common challenges faced by managers, including burnout, turnover, poor communication, and lack of accountability.
Space in this free webinar is limited! Click here to register.
Meet Our Presenters:
Sarah Bowman, Associate Consultant, TBD Solutions
Sarah has infused the behavioral health system with infectious energy and a commitment to excellence for over 15 years. Her strong leadership, utilization of data-driven decision making, and focus on outcomes measurement has helped enhance a vast array of behavioral health programs and services. She is a dynamic presenter and trainer, with an excellent track record for building high performing, strengths-based teams.
Travis has served as a manager and educator for over a decade. A consummate student of management and leadership, Travis has supervised diverse teams and maintains a reputation for getting lasting results and spurring innovation. He has trained hundreds of managers across the Midwest.
