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Policy Areas

In partnership with the Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (OMHSAS), the Office of Children, Youth, and Families (OCYF) is funding trauma training opportunities for all child welfare professionals in PA via Lakeside Global. From September 30, 2022, through September 30, 2023, PA child welfare professionals serving children in PA are able to take advantage of FREE trainings facilitated by the team at Lakeside Global to become trauma-aware, trauma-sensitive, trauma-informed, or healing-centered. This also includes “Train the Trainer” sessions to support trauma-informed sustainability within a child welfare organization.

To learn more about how you can take advantage of this professional development, please view the Trauma Training Announcement.

If you have questions relating to any of these trainings, please email PA Care Partnership or RCPA Policy Director Jim Sharp.

Through a partnership of the National Alliance for Direct Support Professionals (NADSP), the Research and Training Center on Community Living at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on Community Integration, and the American Network of Community Options and Resources (ANCOR), the Moving Mountains Award recognizes organizations using leading practices in direct support workforce development that result in improved outcomes for people with disabilities. Organizations applying for the award are required to demonstrate how their workforce practices and philosophy align with the key principles of NADSP. These principles are:

  • All direct support professionals benefit from access to well-constructed educational experiences (e.g., competency-based trainings, continuing and higher education) and lifelong learning.
  • Certifying highly-qualified workers incentivizes continuing education, increased compensation, and access to career pathways for direct support professionals, thereby improving retention.
  • Values-based and ethical decision making can be learned and infused into daily practice.
  • Strengthening relationships and partnerships between direct support professionals, self-advocates, and other advocacy groups and families improves the quality of support.

Applications are now being accepted for the 2023 Moving Mountains Award. The winning organization(s) will be honored and will share their initiatives during the ANCOR Annual Conference on April 24–26, 2023, in Chicago. Winners will be notified in advance. Applications are due on Friday, December 2, 2022, by 11:59 pm CST via electronic submission. 

If you have questions regarding the completion of the application, please email the Moving Mountains Coordinators. To learn more about the awards, visit here. For information on previous award winners, visit the Moving Mountains Award Past Winners page.

Tuesday, December 6, 2022
1:00 pm – 2:00 pm EST, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm CST, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm MST, 10:00 am – 11:00 am PST

Greg Santucci, MS, OTR/L

Speaker Bio:
Greg Santucci is a Pediatric Occupational Therapist, the Founding Director of Power Play Pediatric Therapy, and an Occupational Therapy Supervisor at Children’s Specialized Hospital. Greg has worked with children and families for over 20 years, providing OT services in schools, homes, and outpatient therapy centers throughout New Jersey. Greg is certified in Sensory Integration and is the creator of the Model of Child Engagement, a clinical framework to help professionals and parents focus on a child’s felt safety and regulation needs with the ultimate goal of improving a child’s participation in daily activities. Greg has lectured nationally for over a decade on topics related to sensory processing, child development, behavior, and neurodiversity affirming practices; he consults with parents and educators from around the world. Greg is the father of two children and is married to a Pediatric Occupational Therapist, so he shares his toys with everyone in his family.

Objectives:
At the end of this session, the learner will:

  • Identify the 8 sensory systems and how they influence attention, behavior, and the ability for a child to meet our expectations.
  • Understand when sensory processing or environmental stressors impact behavior and the importance of sensory validation for both neurotypical and neurodivergent children.
  • Become more skilled at identifying regulation challenges in children and implement strategies that focus on compassion and collaboration over compliance.

Audience: This webinar is intended for all members of the rehabilitation team including medical staff, nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech language pathologists, licensed psychologists, mental health professionals, and other interested professionals.

Level: Intermediate

Certificate of Attendance: Certificates of attendance are available for all attendees. No CEs are provided for this course.

Registration: Registration is complimentary for members of IPRC/RCPA. Registration fee for non-members is $179. Not a member yet? Consider joining today. Multiple registrations per organization are permitted.

REGISTER HERE

The Administration for Community Living (ACL) has awarded a five-year grant totaling over $6 million to establish a national center to expand and strengthen the direct care workforce across the country. This initiative will provide technical assistance to states and service providers and facilitate collaboration with stakeholders to improve recruitment, retention, training, and professional development of the direct care workers who provide the critical services that enable people with disabilities and older adults to live in their own homes and communities.

Long-standing workforce shortages have reached crisis levels during the COVID-19 pandemic; today, more than three-quarters of service providers are not accepting new clients and more than half have cut services as a result of the direct care workforce shortage. The high turnover of staff has also meant that individuals who are able to receive services often experience service disruptions and receive inconsistent care. As a result, increasing numbers of people are left with no option but to move to nursing homes and other institutions, people who want to leave these facilities cannot, and the health and safety of those who live in the community are at risk.

The national Direct Care Workforce Capacity Building Center will serve as a hub, providing tools, resources, and training to assist state systems and service providers and to support the development and coordination of policies and programs that contribute to a stable, robust direct care workforce. The center’s website will share resources from the federal government, highlight state and local model policies and best practices that can be replicated or adapted, and share training and technical assistance materials. In addition, the center will facilitate peer-to-peer sharing of lessons learned and promising practices through learning collaboratives and support collaboration between state systems, including Medicaid, aging, disability, and workforce agencies; service providers; and aging, disability, and labor stakeholders. Additional information is available on the ACL website.