This is the first course in a three-part series on Functional Assessment, and contains an introduction to Functional Assessments. This course focuses on the requirements that pertain to Functional Assessments (FAs) and positive behavioral intervention plans and supports.

This is the second course in a three-part series on Functional Assessment, and contains an introduction to Functional Assessments. This course focuses on the requirements that pertain to conducting Functional Assessments (FAs).

This is the third course in a three-part series on Functional Assessment, and contains an introduction to Functional Assessments. This course focuses on the process of creating and implementing a positive support plan.

This course is designed to expand upon the skills of interventionists already familiar with Pivotal Response Treatment. Specific Pivotal Response Treatments are reviewed that focus on teaching joint attention and play skills, as well as expanding self initiations in children with autism such as learning to ask questions (e.g., what, where, and who) and making requests to participate with their peers (e.g., cooperative arrangements). Interventionists will find this course particularly helpful for facilitating interactions in social routines within home, community, and school settings to better support children with autism.

This course has been designed for anyone who works with an individual who takes medications. The purpose of the course is to help staff understand the effects of medications and how they work in the body. It gives an overview of what people need to be aware of when assisting with the administration of medications and what to look out for. This course is a must for anybody who works with an individual who takes medications.

Autism for Direct Support Staff has been designed to provide a comprehensive overview of Autism for those people who have little or no background of the topic. Modules include topics ranging from the overview of Autism itself to Professionalism and Philosophy. While the course title suggests it is only for support staff, we suggest staff at all levels of an organization would benefit from completing it, particularly supervisors and managers. Remember, "For supervisors to supervise and for managers to manage, they need to know what staff have learned" (Deming, 1974).

Whether you are a parent a brother, aunt, uncle or grandparent, understanding autism and what it means for the person and their family assists with achieving the best outcome for all. "Autism for Families" is a short course designed to assist parents and other family members with understanding what autism is and how it affects their family member. While parents can become quite expert with regard to how autism affects their son or daughter, other members of the family can often be left out and sidelined. Everyone involved in the life of a person with autism has a role to play in supporting both the individual and the parents who are often isolated in their understanding and support of their child. By educating the whole family, individuals are more able to support each other and maximize the outcomes for all concerned. Training hours is approximately 5 hours.

When a person has major behavior problems, it is not only helpful but also necessary to address them through the process of a formal Behavior Assessment and Intervention Plan, as outlined in this course. These plans take a great deal of staff time to research, conceptualize and write. In the long run they can lead to solutions to these problems in efficient and effective ways. This course will look at how the information is collected for a behavioral assessment, and how the program should be implemented to best support an individual.

This course has been designed to inform you about the rights of clients. Human rights are the basic rights that people have in all aspects of their lives, and it is important for support staff to recognize and support these rights when working with their clients. Case studies are used throughout this course to emphasize behaviors that violate the client's rights, and inform you on how to effectively resolve any problems that you encounter. This course also contains information about informed consent, and will help you to understand some of the different needs that people have.

As clinicians, it is important to put considerable effort into developing Cultural Competence when working with clients. This means examining our biases and prejudices, developing cross-cultural skills, searching for role models, and spending as much time as possible with other people who share a passion for Cultural Competence. This course will give you an introduction to the main concepts of Cultural Competency, and what is required to become culturally competent.

Challenging behavior is the one thing that continues to consume our time, resources and emotion in the work we do. The more efficient we become at supporting people to change their behavior, the closer we get to achieving the outcomes we strive toward. Understanding whether our efforts to support behavior change are working, is the foundation of any effective behavior support plan. To know this....we need data! Data Collection is a "quick course" of study in why we need to collect data and covers the fundamentals of how to do so. This includes graphing and how to ensure the data you collect is reliable.

Perhaps the most challenging clinical aspect of providing mental health care to people with developmental disabilities is the diagnostic assessment of psychiatric disorders. Although it has been reported that persons with developmental disabilities experience the full range of psychiatric disorders, at rates higher than the general population, many mental disorders, for various reasons, are misdiagnosed, under-diagnosed, or undiagnosed in this population. The degree of accuracy of diagnostic assessment with this population is critical to best practice as it provides the foundation for treatment and service planning. This course will explore Dual Diagnosis and possible treatment processes for people with dual diagnoses, and recommendations for providing Dual Diagnosis services.

This course is designed for people working in direct support roles with people who have Autism. It is comprehensive and includes everything from History and Professionalism to Behavior Analysis and to working with challenging behaviors. The content of the course has been compiled by experts in the field and has been fully reviewed. It is competency tested and designed to maximize the learning outcome for the person completing it.

This course has been designed to give you and your colleagues an understanding of the emergencies that you need to be prepared for, including specific industry information for schools, hospitals, and other workplaces. Workplace safety during an emergency is very important, and well planned procedures and plans can mean the difference between life and death. The course covers Earthquakes, Floods, Hurricanes, and Tornadoes.

This course is designed to assist interventionists in developing effective working relationships when teaching individuals with autism. This important first step in teaching is often overlooked when supporting individuals with autism but is critical for success in teaching. The importance of identify meaningful reinforcers and building motivation are reviewed. In addition, strategies for increasing the child's responsiveness to your instruction are covered to promote success in your teaching efforts.

Visual supports are a way of making auditory information visual. Visual Supports are an effective instructional tool. Visual supports organize a sequence of events, enhancing the student's ability to understand, anticipate and participate in those events. Visual supports supplement verbal instruction, clarifying the information for the student and increasing comprehension. Visual supports can be used to cue communication, providing reminders of what to do and say in a situation. This course will provide you with tools to provide visual supports to help communicate with individuals diagnosed with Autism.

This course will provide staff with a fundamental understanding of what it means to provide effective support to a person with Developmental Disabilities. Getting the basics right will better ensure improved outcomes by working as a coordinated team. This course has been developed specifically by Capital District to provide staff with the tools they need to work effectively. This course includes how to write effective and clear goals along with measurable objectives.

It is important that harassment is not a problem in all workplaces. This course has been designed to inform you about what constitutes harassment, the different types of harassment, and the legislation that means harassment is illegal. This course is aimed at employees as well as employers.

This course will give you an introduction into the risks that some materials pose, and instruct you on how to better understand these risks. This will help you to reduce the risks to yourself and others in your workplace.

This course has been designed to give you a basic understanding about the health care decision-making process. It covers information about supporting individuals to make their own decisions, issues of capacity, substitute decision makers, and during emergency situations.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was enacted by the US Congress in 1996 and became effective July 1st, 1997. The Act is a combination of regulations designed to reduce inefficiencies, fraud, and misuse of information in the health care industry and to protect the health insurance coverage for workers and their families when they change or lose their jobs, get divorced, become pregnant, or move. This course focuses on the Privacy and Security Rules of the Act as they are more relevant to the direct support worker, who is the primary audience of this course.

This course has been designed to instruct you on the process of incident reporting. Every incident - whether anything happens or it is just a near miss - needs to be reported on. This course will inform you on the basics of this process.

This course has been designed to give new employees an introduction to Bloodborne Pathogens, Infection Control, Universal Precautions, and Handling Vomit, Urine, and Feces. These topics are very important for all workers in the health care industry, and demonstrates the importance of good practice in order to stop the spread of infectious diseases.

This course is designed to assist interventionists in developing the basic skills for implementing Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) to teach children with autism. An overview of the basic components of PRT is provided along with guidelines for building child motivation and establishing teachable moments within play and other natural routines to promote the development of new skills.

Legal and ethical matters are of concern in almost every profession, especially in the field of mental health. Marriage and Family Therapists (MFTs) will often encounter clients and situations where ethical and legal issues are intertwined with the mental health issues that are at hand. Because of this, it is imperative that the MFT have a good understanding of their legal and ethical responsibilities and rights when working with clients. While many of the legal considerations of the field are governed by national law, in addition each state and licensing board will have their own laws and standards. This course provides a general overview of laws and standards in place in California. If practicing in another state, it will be imperative for you to know and understand those laws and standard which are specific to that state in which you are practicing.

This course will provide direct support staff, teachers and other professionals with a model that will increase options when dealing with challenging behavior. By understanding how we can work to change environments, support people to learn alternative ways of getting their needs met, increasing skill base and independence as well as directly influencing behavior with the use of behavioral technology, we can increase the likelihood of avoiding that crisis in the first place. That said; behavioral crises still happen however successful we are, so we also need to understand what to do in these situations. By the end of this course you will better understand how such approaches will assist you.

This course is designed to give people in any support roles valuable tools they can use for developing and implementing positive behavior supports to support students with challenging behaviors. The course outlines an approach for understanding why problem behavior occurs, and how to adapt intervention strategies to address the specific needs of individuals. In addition, the course provides guidelines for assisting those responsible for implementing positive behavioral supports to do so in a reliable manner so recommended positive behavioral supports can produce their intended benefit.

Person Centered Planning (PCP) is a course designed to provide a firm understanding of the philosophy and process of thinking and planning in a person centered way. EVERYBODY should do this course. Whether you are a newly employed support person or a seasoned professional or manager, this course will allow you to truly understand what it means to provide support to someone in a "Person Centered" manner.

Philosophy, Values and Advocacy is a "quick course" of study concerning the importance of these core underlying principles with relation to providing support services to people who have disabilities.

Whether you work in the mental health, developmental disability, educational or general medical sectors, this course will be of value to direct support staff and professional staff alike.

This course is designed to help interventionists support individuals with challenging behaviors. The course includes an overview of what is Positive Behavioral Support ranging from (1) a description of its philosophical underpinnings and critical features, (2) the hallmark assessment and intervention planning practices, and (3) specific proactive, teaching, and reactive strategies used to develop positive behavioral support plans. This course is essential for interventionists who must resolve challenging behaviors, teach meaningful replacement behaviors or alternative skills, and create interactions that promote success when working with individuals with autism.

While assisting individuals with personal care it is important to ensure that each individual is taught socially appropriate behavior related to privacy and protecting his or her own body. This course will cover the objectives for individuals in residential care, prevention strategies, and case studies to help learner's understanding of how to prevent high risk sexual behavior in healthcare settings.

Professionalism is not just something for doctors, lawyers and other formally qualified people. Professionalism is something that EVERY person in ANY job should understand. This is especially the case for people working in Human Services. This "quick course" of study is for anyone working in the Human services sector at any level.

This course is designed to instruct you on how to recognize abuse that may be taking place, and how to report what you see. It covers mandated reporters, types of abuse and neglect, and what you should do if you witness or experience some form of abuse.

Building on the notion of "normalization" for people who are aging or have a disability, Social Role Valorization (SRV) can be seen as a tool for analyzing the process and effects of the societal devaluation of these groups and individuals. ALL members of the organization at ALL levels they support.

This course has been designed to inform you about the rights of students. Human rights are the basic rights that people have in all aspects of their lives, and it is important for educators to recognize and support these rights when working with their students. Case studies are used throughout this course to emphasize behaviors that violate the student's rights, and inform you on how to effectively resolve any problems that you encounter.

What is supervision? Who needs it? How does it happen and what should someone expect when having supervision. These are all questions that are addressed in this course designed for both the supervisor and supervisee. This course is aimed at anyone working with people and who wants to make sure they are working as effectively as they can by understanding how they can maximize the benefits of an effective supervision process.

This course has been designed to give you an increased awareness and understanding of challenging behaviors, and help you to understand some strategies to help prevent challenging behaviors from occurring while supporting people when they do.

People spend their day transitioning from one activity to another with little or no thought as to how they do it or consider the process involved. Whatever the setting, school, work, home, we largely complete these transitions naturally and without consequence. While natural to most people, individuals with Autism can have difficulty in changing between activities and coping with changes to their schedule or environment. This course will provide you with tools to help people with Autism.

This course focuses on the key elements of effective best practice and educational models for people with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Prader-Willi syndrome is a genetic disorder that occurs in approximately one out of every 22,000 births. Prader-Willi syndrome affects males and females with equal frequency and affects all races and ethnicities and is recognized as a common genetic cause of childhood obesity. This course examines the cause of Prader-Willi syndrome and then common symptoms associated with it. It also explores ways to manage and treat over eating and obesity, growth-hormone therapy, and other possible conditions that may be related to, or caused by, Prader-Willi syndrome.

Is there a difference between Asperger's syndrome and High-Functioning Autism (HFA)? This question continues to challenge those who work in the sector and is debated at all levels. Generally, the two terms are used almost interchangeably. In part, we may be able to determine the answer to the question by looking at the reasoning behind how the terms came to exist. This course will look at the differences between Asperger's and HFA.

This course has been designed to guide you in writing goals and measurable objectives. It is often hard for people to distinguish between goals and objectives, and this course will lead you through the differences.