8:30- 8:45: Introduction and Awards—Barry Duncan and Bob Bohanske

8:45-10:15: From Illness to Recovery: Consumer Voice and Choice—Lori Ashcraft

A sharp departure from customary discourse on mental illness, recovery-driven services shift away from professional-directed treatment based on diagnostic labels and prescriptive practices to individually tailored, consumer-authored plans. Moving from illness toward recovery means that counseling professionals must be both responsible and responsive to their customer base and directly involve clients in decision making. This keynote calls for recovery-focused services based on the heart and soul of change—services that recognize clients as the primary movers of change, that require the unique tailoring of intervention to their preferences, and that call for relationships that are collaborative and respectful.

10:15-10:30: Break

10:30-12:00: Becoming Better at What We Do: Five Steps—Barry Duncan

Whether you’re a novice or expert practitioner, becoming better at what you do requires you to step up to the plate with two things: attaining systematic client feedback and taking your development as a helper to heart. This keynote integrates these two critical aspects and strives to help you re-remember why you became a counselor in the first place. Barry will present a pragmatic, five-step method for accelerating your development as a helper, invigorating your work, expanding your theoretical breadth, and dramatically improving your outcomes.

Lunch: 12-2:00: Networking opportunities

2:00-4:45 (Break at 3:15): Four Tracks: Youth/School/Family; Social Justice; Special Topics; Consumer Driven Outcomes Implementation

Youth/School/Family

Shouldn't I Be Telling You What I Think? How to Use Consumer Feedback to Improve Services for Young People and Caregivers in Schools, Homes, and Communities—John Murphy and Jacqueline Sparks

“Shouldn't I be telling you what I think?,” a direct quote from a 10-year-old child, captures the invalidating experience of being excluded from one’s own treatment. This session provides hands-on methods and tools for using consumer feedback to deliver respectful and responsive services to young people and their caregivers in schools and elsewhere. Participants will walk away with all they need to begin outcome partnerships in their settings.

Social Justice

The Flight of the Kiwi—Robyn Pope and Andrea McKenzie

This workshop details the inspiring social justice journey of not only one agency but also of an entire country striving to make things right and establish a true partnership between cultures. The Treaty of Waitangi—the founding document between first nations people (Maori) of Aotearoa/New Zealand and the Crown provides the framework for this relationship. Client directed, outcome informed practices carry the spirit of the Treaty and help in its implementation.

Special Topics

1. Criminal Justice: “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate. Some you just can’t reach!”—George Braucht)

Perhaps today’s foremost “change” challenge is helping others sustain long-term recovery from alcohol and other drug abuse and criminal behaviors. This session applies the ideas and practices of this conference to folks that many people, even professionals, tend to write off as incorrigible and unreachable. Participants will learn to establish a “how well is your recovery working?” culture using simple and efficient feedback tools with criminal justice clients.

2. Peer Support and the Journey of Recovery—Lori Ashcraft and Bob Bohanske

Based on Lori and Bob’s experiences in creating peer operated programs, this workshop presents guidelines for successfully integrating peers into your workforce. Topics discussed include peer training and preparation, worksite preparations for a smooth integration of peers, performance improvement approaches for peer work, and evaluation of peer services, including what was previously missing in action, client based outcome feedback.

3. Children, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Heart and Soul of Change—Sami Timimi

The story of antidepressants and children symbolizes the relationship between medicine and the pharmaceutical industry, so there is much to learn from re-telling this sorry tale of manipulation, deception, and potentially harmful practices. From that starting point, this workshop will outline the evidence for all psychiatric drugs for youth—highlighting what clients and relationship bring to the table—and will provide participants strategies to challenge potentially harmful practices.

Consumer Driven Outcomes Implementation

Supervision for a Change—in Clients and Counselors—Barry Duncan and Jonathan Hunt-Glassman

Management support at all levels is critical to agency implementation but supervision is the key. This workshop presents a four stage process of supervision that ensures counselors are providing the best tailored clinical services possible while simultaneously attending to supervisee’s professional growth. MyOutcomes, a web based system of consumer driven outcomes management, is explored as a convenient way to track individual and agency effectiveness, and as a framework to use data to encourage counselor continued learning and development.

4:45-5:00: Break

5:00-5:30: Looking to the Future—The Heart and Soul of Change Project Team

You now have everything you need to make a difference—to change the face of practice in your place. But it requires your action: Both to assign those we serve key roles in determining how services are delivered, and keeping your finger on the pulse of your growth as a counselor.