Preconference Institutes: Early Learning and Networking

Our preconference learning programs consistently rate high marks for their intensity, substance, and scope. Whatever topic you choose, you can count on a unique learning experience that will expand, encourage, and likely challenge your present thinking.

All preconference programs take place at the Grand Hyatt, San Antonio and require separate registration.

• Middle Management Academy
• Executive Express
• Mental Health First Aid Instructor Certification
  
• Full Day Institutes 
• Half Day Institutes

Executive Express
April 4 – 5, 2009

Join us for the only executive experience that delivers the tools you need to revitalize mental health, addictions treatment, and social services for the decade ahead.

Executive Express, the only program designed specifically for high-performing leaders in behavioral health and social services, provides the tools to respond to a complex and changing marketplace. In this intensive immersion program, you will:

• Understand the latest market trends in behavioral health and social services.
• Define the competencies entrepreneurial organizations need to succeed.
• Interact with industry thought leaders and like-minded colleagues.
• Get field-tested “how-to” strategies
• Learn from executive case studies.
• Discover how to transform ideas into real change.

Join us for this one of a kind experience! Improve outcomes for the clients you serve and your organization’s bottom line.

Registration: National Council Members $650; Nonmembers $795; add the conference for just $500!

Register now.

Mental Health First Aid Instructor Certification
April 1 – 5, 2009

Join the nation’s select few who are certified to offer training in Mental Health First Aid, an internationally recognized evidence-based program proven to increase knowledge, diminish stigma, and provide tools for helping persons experiencing a mental-health problems or crises. This intense, five-day training program reviews adult learning styles and teaching strategies, and provides in-depth instruction on implementing and managing the program for a variety of community audiences.

Don’t miss the reunion of all instructors trained in 2008!

Registration: $1,500; add the conference for only $100.

Limited openings — register early to secure your spot, contact Susan Partain at 202.684.7457 ext. 232 or SusanP@thenationalcouncil.org to register.

FULL DAY INSTITUTES

FD1: World-Class Board Development
April 5, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

Dean Cain, President, Cain Consulting Group

Attention board members! Get right to the heart of problems you face — and learn proven strategies for success. Cain helps you learn how to build commitment and teamwork, understand what’s expected, maintain a quality relationship with your CEO, manage a smooth CEO transition, understand liability and risk, make meetings work, measure organizational success, and recruit quality board members.

FD2: National Council’s Primary Care and Behavioral Health Boot Camp
April 5, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

Kathy Reynolds, CEO, Washtenaw Community Health Organization;
M. Elizabeth Reardon, Reardon Consulting

This institute is designed for those organizations in the early stages of implementing collaborative care, as well as those struggling to make collaboration work. Job descriptions, memoranda of understanding, contracts, confidentiality policies and financing solutions for fee-for-service are covered in depth. Plus, you get the National Council’s exclusive toolkit for implementing collaborative care in your community.

FD3: Employment as a Recovery Outcome: Embedding Evidence-Based Supported Employment in Your Organization
April 5, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

Robert W. Myers, PhD

The employment rate for people with mental illness is only 15% — the lowest of any disability group. Hear from providers who run successful supported employment programs and have helped mental health consumers start their own businesses. Faculty from the Dartmouth Supported Employment Center share hands-on tools they’ve developed to train staff, maintain quality despite staff turnover, test program fidelity over time, and measure whether the supported employment programs are getting support.

FD4: Strategies to Improve the Bottom Line: Access and Retention 
April 5, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

David Lloyd, MTM Services

Learn how to retool your intake process to make it more responsive to consumers, increase capacity, and add to your bottom line. Come away from this institute with 10 things you can do to run a more financially solvent organization and provide better care during tough times. Hear first-hand accounts from three organizations in a year-long National Council quality improvement initiative that were able to increase service capacity by more than 20%, reducing risks associated with non-adherence and stabilizing revenue losses due to no-shows. Learn how your organization can participate in the next rollout of this results-driven program.

FD5: Success in a Challenging Context: Managing Public Behavioral Health Benefits
April 5, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

Bob Dyer, President, Criterion Health, Mike Hammond, Executive Director, Association of Community Mental Health Centers of Kansas; Scott Graham, Director of Quality Improvement, Kansas Health Solutions; Charles Ray, President, CGR and Associates

This institute is specially designed for board members, officers, and senior managers of public behavioral health benefit management entities. Hear from nationally-recognized experts as they provide updates on the federal regulatory environment, present a model for improved compliance with federal and state regulatory requirements in public behavioral health benefits management, and conduct a forum for sharing common needs and best practices. Learn how you can benefit from the model adopted by community mental health providers in Kansas who contracted with the state to manage Medicaid behavioral health services as a managed care organization.

HALF DAY INSTITUTES

HD1: Transforming Psychiatric Medication Services to Support Recovery
April 5, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm

Patricia E. Deegan, PhD, Senior Director, The Joshua Tree Center for Ex-Patient Studies; Leslie Young, LSCSW CSS Specialist/DSC/MHTS/Peer Support, Wyandot Center; Michael Leeson, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Officer, Kansas Health Solutions, LLC

Join consumer-survivor and recovery education pioneer Deegan and her colleagues to examine how to instill and nourish such values as choice, self-determination, hope, and the importance of relationships in everyday practice with clients. In this half-day institute, learn about the emerging practice of shared decision making in medicine and its application in psychiatry. Also, hear lessons learned from providers who have used the CommonGround Approach™ at state hospitals and community-based programs. Receive start-up materials to begin implementation of this innovative model in your organization.

HD2: Shackleton’s Way: Leading Teams in Challenging Times
April 5, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm

Coralie Rogers and Michele Phillips, Key Seminars

This intense half-day institute teaches you how to lead with optimism through truly challenging times — using the inspiring example of one of the greatest leaders of all time, Sir Ernest Shackleton. In 1914, Shackleton led a crew of 27 men on the ship Endurance in a quest to be the first to complete an 1,800-mile crossing of the Antarctic on foot. The bold expedition failed, as the Endurance became trapped in polar ice. For two years — in frigid conditions and with little hope of survival — Shackleton kept his men together, motivated, and alive — and in the end, got them all home safely! Learn how to apply Shackleton’s leadership practices to the challenges your team faces today.