TFA Annual Conference

The TFA Annual Conference is held in the fall.  This meeting invites professionals to provide presentations and share knowledge and expertise with peers and leaders in the social services community. The 2011 Annual Conference is being hosted at the Fairmont Banff Springs, November 7-9 in Banff, Alberta, CANADA.

Training Opportunities

TFA Member Agencies often host training and educational sessions.  Please check directly with an agency in your area to learn about what may be available to you.

Were you able to attend the 2010 Teaching-Family Association Conference in Columbus, Ohio back on November 18th through 20th? What an amazing 3 days it was! The information sharing was non-stop. Last year approximately 140 people from youth services organizations across the country attended the annual TFA Conference. This year we had approximately 200 attendees! Everyone that we spoke with left the conference completely satisfied and armed with much more knowledge about the Teaching-Family Model than when they arrived.

For those of you who attended the TFA conference you probably saw the Innovative Teaching Systems booth. For 3 days we showed off our new website and this blog. We also walked attendees through the Teaching Family Services Online Store where we sell Teaching-Family Model Training Materials. We received some excellent feedback on the website and on our training materials. We wanted to take this opportunity to say “Thank You” to everyone stopped by the booth!

As we mentioned in an earlier post, Attending the Teaching-Family Association Conference this November?, Cristy Schlientz led a number of breakout sessions during the conference. Among other topics, Cristy delivered informative sessions on Motivation Systems and on her Values Curriculum. A number of attendees shared with us that Cristy’s sessions were the most information of the entire conference! If you missed the conference or even if you attended, but missed Cristy’s sessions, please feel free to contact Innovative Teaching Systems to setup an information session on Motivation Systems or Values Curriculum.

Thanks again to EVERYONE who came out for the Teaching-Family Association Conference this year. A special thanks to those of you who attended Cristy’s sessions. If you were unable make the TFA conference this year, be sure to come out next year so that you can take advantage of all of the amazing information sharing sessions on the Teaching-Family Model.

The Teaching-Family Association (TFA) was founded in 1975 to ensure the quality of care provided by professionals who actively pursue the goals of humane, effective, individualized treatment of children, families, and dependent adults using the common framework of the Teaching-Family Model for treatment and support. What is learned in one agency can be shared with other agencies within the Association and incorporated into the standards of quality assurance processes within the Association. TFA’s goals are to certify members, recognize programs, standardize useful training and evaluation procedures, supervise program replication, and provide yearly conferences for sharing new material and program development. The Teaching-Family Association is the only entity in North America that defines and implements standards and reviews procedures related to the actual performance and quality of treatment and service delivery systems at all organizational levels.

Should I Attend the TFA 2010 Conference?

This conference brings together leaders, experts, and professionals providing support in residential care, foster care, home-based treatment, psychiatric centers, school-based programs and more. If you are involved in the mental health, social services or juvenile justice arenas, this conference is designed to support your practice and advancement!

Anyone involved in the provision, support or administration of the human services industry will find this conference extremely valuable:

• Professionals with private agencies
• Public service professionals
• Representatives of regulatory organizations
• Board leaders and volunteers
• Residential service professionals
• Foster Parents
• Supervisors & consultants
• Social workers
• Administrators
• Teachers

The Teaching-Family Association 2010 Conference is going on from November 18th through the 20th at the Capitol Hyatt. The Capitol Hyatt is located at 75 East State Street in Columbus, Ohio. TFA has arranged for special rates for conference attendees — $109 single/double. Reservations must be confirmed by October 20 to ensure space. To book a room at the Capitol Hyatt call 614-228-1234.

What’s really exciting for Innovative Teaching Systems is that I’ll be speaking and moderating two sessions during the conference! I’ve had the opportunity to speak at the annual TFA Conference and I always look forward to it. Each year there are more and more past attendees who come back to participate in my sessions, as well as, a lot of new faces in the group who are attending one of my sessions for the first time. I really enjoy participating in the TFA Conference and am definitely looking forward to TFA 2010. Below are the sessions that I’ll be leading.

Special Workshops with Cristy Schlientz: Motivation Systems

On Thursday November 18th from 1 PM – 4 PM I’ll be providing attendees with a deep understanding of theTeaching-Family Model Motivation Systems. You can learn about the variety of systems available for a variety of populations. We’ll also review the theory behind motivation systems so that you can create your own. Learn when to apply this element and how to move clients through levels of systems. You will gain a broader understanding of when to move clients off of motivation systems entirely. A workshop fee is required, but I promise to make it well worth it!

Session 1: Teaching Parent Skills & Curriculum Guide

On Saturday November 20th from 1:30 PM – 3:20 PM I’ll be leading a session designed to help Consultants better understand Teaching-Family Model Consultation concepts to positively impact the work of Teaching-Parents. You will learn how to hit the right buttons to make the most out of interactions resulting in client success.

Session 2: Teaching Children Personal & Family Values

Following the Teaching Parent Skills & Curriculum Guide session I will lead another session from 3:30 PM – 4:20 PM designed to help practitioners better understand how to communicate the concepts that are difficult to master regarding personal and family values. How do you instill values in a person who has never had examples or understanding? Come hear how to teach to children while reinforcing what you teach all the time.

Attend TFA 2010

I hope that you attend TFA 2010 as I think it’s going to be a great 3 day event. If you do decide to come I hope you will join me at one of the sessions above. If you can’t make it to a session definitely stop by the Innovative Teaching Systems booth and say hi!

For more information about the event contact the TFA at 804-632-0155 or online at www.teachingfamily.org. You can also download their brochure.

Welcome to the first ever article on the Teaching Family Services Blog! We are so excited to have our brand new blog up and running. We really appreciate you taking to read this article, and we hope that you stop back on a weekly basis to check out all of the informative articles that we plan to write.

Through the Teaching Family Services Blog, we will provide free information about the Teaching-Family Model. Our blog will be updated on a regular basis, with new articles coming out each week. We hope that you will find this information valuable when researching the Teaching-Family Model, and determining the best solution for helping your youth learn the necessary life skills for accomplishing their dreams.

On this blog, you can expect to get access to information around:

• Motivational Tools for Youth
• The benefits of praising and correcting youth behaviors
• How to properly implement the Teaching-Family Model
• Promoting parent involvement
• Skills for program observation
• Evaluating youths progress
• And much, much more…

If you’d like to be notified on when a new blog article is published, you can subscribe to the Teaching Family Services blog for free. You can sign-up to receive our articles via email, OR you can subscribe to the RSS feed. Anyone who signs-up, will also qualify for a free on-site assessment of their facility, for those of you looking to find out if the Teaching-Family Model makes sense for your organization.

We hope that you will continue to come back to our blog for access to all of the latest and greatest information about the Teaching-Family Model. Please feel free to share your thoughts and opinions on our articles, with us, and our community, by leaving a comment below. We looking forward to getting to know you! Thanks again for taking the time to check out the Teaching Family Services blog.