Direct TCI Training Protocol

Direct TCI Training Protocol Overview For you and your agency to assess whether participants in your training understand and can demonstrate the principles and skills inherent in Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI), it is essential that you evaluate their knowledge and skills. Enclosed, you will find knowledge-based tests to complement the skills-based checklists that are in your TCI Activity Guide. Please use them as appraisal and feedback instruments in your direct TCI training. The knowledge-based instrument demonstrates a participant’s understanding and knowledge of the basic principles and concepts of TCI. The skills-based instrument documents the participants’s ability to demonstrate verbal and physical skills such as the LSI and the physical interventions. The participant’s trainer-supervisor appraisal allows the TCI trainer to evaluate the strengths and needs of the participant in the areas of overall performance, participation in training activities, and general understanding of the TCI principles, skills and material, and communicate this performance to their supervisor. The participants attitude regarding the use of TCI should also be evaluated and documented in the appraisal. The use of this appraisal form is an essential component to the trainer/supervisor dialogue. You can expect that participant’s trainer-supervisor will demonstrate competence in all three sections of this evaluation after training. If your agency does not use physical interventions such as the small child or the prone restraint, and you do not train staff in those skills, omit them from the evaluation. Your agency should maintain copies of the results for each employee throughout their employment history. Accurate and complete copies of your employee’s training are necessary for your state’s licensing, your agency’s accreditation, and human resources records. These records can verify that you have an active and relevant training program with documented trained staff if ever your agency is involved in a civil or criminal matter. There are three different tests included in this package. You can use any test or re-combine them to make a fourth or fifth test. The only caution is that you always include safety questions if your agency uses physical interventions. The testing principles and goals TCI testing is a work-related corrective feedback process whose goal is the participant’s maximum learning, skill acquisition, and improved job performance. The testing system complies with agency accreditation standards and maintains your own TCI accreditation standards. The protocol favors the training of new workers, but its use in agency refreshers is also appropriate. The TCI testing process gives the TCI trainer (and the agency administration) a means to evaluate and monitor whether a staff member: 1) knows and can recall fundamental TCI concepts, 2) can apply them in simple ways, 3) can perform verbal skills and strategies, and 4) can perform physical interventions with no safety violations. The protocol supports trainer-staff corrective feedback and supports staff-trainersupervisor communication, and corrective feedback before and after staff starting on the job. Maintain the integrity of the testing process The TCI trainer has to assure that the testing process is fair and consistent and that there is an equal opportunity for practice, coaching, and study for all participants. Maintaining an adequate level of test security is important. Trainers should: • Maintain a presence in the testing evaluation room. • Keep the room free from unnecessary distractions. Remember, this testing process may impact a person’s job responsibilities and career. • Keep the conversation in the room on testing only. Maintain a fair and consistent scoring system • Use the knowledge test answers for your “correct or acceptable” answers. Keep the passing grade consistent from one training program to the next training program. If your agency is going to raise or lower the passing grade, please let participants know ahead of time. Again, it is your agency administration, through the human resources or personnel office, that determines the acceptable standard of performance for your agency. You may also supplement or modify this test with items that are agency-specific, items that highlight or reinforce knowledge, or skills tailored to your agency needs and circumstances. You may also wish to develop additional items specific to agency refreshers or updates. • When scoring the skills checklist, please keep in mind there are a range of skill sets required to be able to successfully prevent crises, de-escalate crises, safely manage crises, and support children in learning and practicing new coping skills. These include assessment skills, verbal skills, motor skills, cognitive strategies, and others. Competency standards in the TCI skill areas should be measured with “real-life” performance in mind and not be lowered for the purposes of just getting people through the training because of organizational issues (e.g. staffing). • When filling out the trainer-supervisor appraisal, the trainer should comment so that the participant’s supervisor may be able to use the information to address strengths and needs in supervision and coaching. Maintain a fair and consistent test re-taking system Some participants will not meet the standards that your agency sets, so it is wise to determine a fair and consistent procedure for re-testing participants. Remember, the testing may have an impact on employment or advancement in the agency. Opportunities for retaking the test should be consistent from one participant to another, and from one training program to another. If there are changes in the re-testing procedure, they should be announced in advance and in writing. Opportunities for re-test training, practice, coaching, and supervision should meet the standards of fairness and consistency. Please remember that under the current Federal, state, and accreditation regulatory requirements, it is essential that your agency’s administration, its human resource or personnel office support and approve the TCI testing and appraisal system. They should be mindful of and active in designing the TCI training schedule, appraisals, re-appraisals, evaluation and corrective feedback methods, grading, record-keeping, and any other pertinent topics that arise within your agency. If you and your agency have any questions, please feel free to call or e-mail the Residential Child Care Project. Trainer Tips Knowledge appraisal • Keep in sight the participants who are taking the written test to ensure that the answers reflect the participant’s knowledge of the TCI materials. Skill appraisal • Place the participants at ease. We suggest having them stretch before the appraisal to help put them at ease and limber them up. • Tell the participants that you may not be able to see everything that they do, so you may ask them to perform the steps again. Tell them that when you ask them to perform something twice because you did not see a step, it will not affect the appraisal of their performance.