Beyond Behaviors

Photo: Group photo of Case Management participants and trainers. Here’s one with me in it.

Becky Flores, Thelma Cing, Erica Sonoda Thornburgh, and I (with Dr. Untalan assisting us on the last day) just finished conducting a weeklong Counseling and Case Management Training for our colleagues on Rota. We had 17 participants from the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs, Public School System, Rota Health, Department of Youth Services, Department of Public Safety, Mayor’s Office, and Department of Labor.

This Counseling and Case Management Training covered basic counseling and case management skills. It focused on applying and integrating these skills into the human service professional’s role. The 5-day workshop consisted of lectures, discussions, role plays, and small group exercises. Our participants learned skills including engagement (connecting with and getting clients involved), assessment (discovering/determining the problems and gathering information), intervention strategies (identifying solutions), evaluation (tracking outcomes and monitoring successes), and team building/conflict resolution (working together).

Using the best-practices model from the research literature, the framework was to follow the scientific method to case management. Thus, our team presented the training using the following structure:

(1) Problem > (2) Hypothesis > (3) Goals > (4) Objectives > (5) Interventions > (6) Evaluation/Monitoring

We decided to have each of the five trainers lead one of the modules for each day:

Day 1: Erica — Engagement (connecting with and getting clients involved).
Day 2: Thelma — Assessment (discovering/determining the problems and gathering information).
Day 3: Steve — Intervention Strategies (identifying solutions).
Day 4: Becky — Evaluation (tracking outcomes and monitoring successes)
Day 5: Dr. Untalan — Team Building and Conflict Resolution (working together).

The four of us (Erica, Thelma, Steve & Becky) agreed that this was one of the best and brightest groups we had ever trained. They truly embraced not only the ideas and knowledge but were quickly able to integrate and apply it to their professional roles.

Our sincerest thanks to our wonderful participants who exemplified the meaning of the Rota hospitality. Rota truly is beautiful and its people so warm and friendly…thanks to you all!

Group #1 (Frank’s Angels): Frank Manglona, Juliet Calvo, LucyAnn Santos, Angelina Manglona, Becky Norita, and Debbie Salazar
Group #2 (The A-Team): Antonio “Tony” Mesngon, Jr., Millie Taisacan, Larry Ayuyu, Randy Taisacan, and Bruce Bailey
Group #3 (Who’s Your Daddy): David “Dave” Santos, DoraLynn Barcinas, Ryan Taisacan, Tom Glenn Manglona, Lorenza Barcinas, and Tanya King

You have not only been a fantastic group to teach, you became our teachers. I will always treasure the time we shared together over dinner at As Paris (thanks Larry). And how can I ever forget the faces of the friends I made there like Dave Santos (who always made me laugh) and Tom (who came to the airport to say goodbye) and Tony (for his t-shirts) and so many others. Thank you Dave for helping to organize and thanks everyone for the delicious get-together (where I tried deer liver for the first time in my life).

Below are photos from our time in Rota and in particular, the Case Management Training.

Photo: Group photo of Case Management participants and trainers.

Photo (lf>rt.): Becky, Erica, Thelma, and I pose for a photo after our first successful day of training.

Photo: Erica lead the training by engaging the participants during the first training day.

Photo: Erica and Thelma field questions from the audience during the training on Engagement.

Photo: This is the gorgeous view from our Coral Garden Hotel.

Photo: The team dined at As Paris, feasting on the local catch of the day.

Photo: The A-Team group proudly displays their ecomap.

Photo: Not to be outdone, Frank’s Angels pose with the ecomap they constructed for their case.

Photo: Who’s Your Daddy group members (working with a very challenging case) were able to come to a compromise and collaborated on this ecomap.

Photo: Millie points to the steps her team went through to logically review the problem, formulate some hypotheses, and develop some goals for their case.

Photo: Tom (holding poster) and his team members shared how they worked from the problem phase through the hypotheses onto the goal development phase.

Photo: LucyAnn and Becky (holding poster) and their group showed how they processed the case.

Photos: Below are close-up shots of the case from Who’s Your Daddy and Frank’s Angels. The last one is the flowchart showing the overview of the scientific approach to case management.