Dr. Kathy Gruver will speak to us about how being positive can improve health outcomes, increase productivity, and enhance life satisfaction. She will focus on the following objectives:

• Learn to live life to its fullest and ‘go for it’
• Examine the role of perception and focus in our interpretation of events
• Reframe the stories of your life for more resilience, happiness, and satisfaction
• Make changes in your viewpoint to see the positive in any situation
• Discover how to find the choices available to you every time
• Experience affirmations, visualization, and mindfulness and how they make all the difference in how we view our world
• Look at the role of gratitude in changing focus
• Practice cognitive restructuring, which gives us options in how we focus our view

Dr. Gruver will end our opening session with a 15 minute Q&A for those who wish to stick around for a few extra minutes. (Read more about Kathy on the PRESENTER tab!)

Kathy Gruver, KathyGruver.com

Emily Szajda, Instructor

Everyone wears their rose-tinted glasses, viewing the world through their unique lens based on their knowledge and experiences - or Mental Maps. In this session, you will shatter those glasses and learn to challenge your assumptions and implicit bias to create a more accurate worldview.

Key Objectives:

• Understand what shapes your Mental Map/Worldview
• Knowledge of the Ladder of Inference and Impact of your Mental Maps
• Expand and create more accurate Mental Maps through effective inquiry

Ana Hollander, ​Program Development Manager

Vanessa Gentle, Learning Development

Managing resource data is hard enough – managing resource data that’s being used by multiple organizations for multiple purposes is even more complex! And yet this kind of multi-lateral resource data management is increasingly important for I&Rs. This panel will take a deeper look into unsolved problems of managing resource data used by (or even maintained by) multiple partners and engage participants in discussing tactical approaches and strategic opportunities to find new solutions.

Key Takeaways:

• How can we best manage multiple vocabularies for categorizing services in situations where partners use different taxonomies?
• How can we accommodate different inclusion and exclusion criteria as required by different partners – without creating different databases?
• How can we share updates to records managed by other partners – can we do better than email?
• To what extent should these challenges be addressed by policies and practices, and to what extent do we want or need technology functionality to support such collaboration?

Greg Bloom, Founder

Tim Sullivan, Director

Kate Lambacher, CEO

Hannah Newton, Resource Center Manager​

(1 hour session)

The National Text Platform Steering Committee Panel will offer some very effective methods for service delivery.  Overall satisfaction and levels of quality assurance will be provided from surveys with clients served in 2021.  Participants will see remarkably efficient ways to capture outcome data from both text and phone encounters. 

• See how to combine both channels (phone and text) to maximize client satisfaction and track meeting client needs.
• Learn how to utilize integrated technologies with your current CRM.
• Appreciate the efficiencies of automated text methods available to handle the most commonly asked for resources

Presenters will offer their experience and discuss the methods available with a focus on how to easily adopt the newest technologies for integrated I&R including telephony and CRM systems.

Quinton Askew, President/CEO

Wanda Oliver, 211 Network Administrator/Programmer/WIN211 Communications Coordinator

Dana Catapano, Marketing and Communications Manager

Shawn McGrogan, 2-1-1 Operations Manager

Edward Goff, Media Coordinator

(1 hour session)

What does it mean to be trauma-informed in our communication? How do we communicate in ways that acknowledge where folks are (stressed out, frustrated, in crisis, angry) and then encourage them to take a step with us toward finding solutions. We'll talk about the invisible "noise" that's present in all of our communication efforts and then discuss approaches to overcoming that noise in ourselves and our clients.

Key Takeaways:

• Understand the relationship between communication "noise", personal experience, stress and trauma
• Identify when you and/or a client might be outside of their Window of Tolerance
• Learn techniques for re-engaging in successful communication

Leanne Lytle, Director of Community Impact

(1 hour session)

Veterans with police involvement, criminal charges, or incarceration often have difficulty navigating traditional justice systems and obtaining positive outcomes. The VA has two programs that partner with justice systems to improve outcomes for those Veterans and their communities. This workshop will describe the missions, methods, and partnerships of those programs. Professionals who provide I&R to Veterans will learn how and when these programs can help, and how to refer Veterans to them in their communities.

Key Takeaways:

• Define the term “Justice-Involved Veteran.”
• Describe the mission and main functions of the Veterans Justice Outreach Program.
• Describe the mission and main functions of the Health Care for Reentry Veterans Program.
• Refer justice-involved veterans to VJO and Reentry programs available in their localities.

Matthew John Miller, Veterans Justice Outreach Specialist

(1 hour session)

Have you ever wondered what drives the results you find when you search the internet? Why is this important and what does this mean for your I&R service information and for your inquirers? How can everyone at your I&R Service contribute to making your valuable online information eligible to be found in search? This session will help participants understand how internet search engines work, why this is important and how to start looking at matching “user intent” or helping inquirers get the appropriate information and referrals, all while meeting search engine requirements.

Key Takeaways:

• Discover what drives the results you find in search engines
• Understand why it is important to be aware of how your information is found in search engines
• Understand which AIRS Standards and Quality Indicators come in to play when looking at your online information
• Find out how to help your I&R Service website and information stand out in search, while meeting several AIRS Standards and Quality Indicators
• Consider what this all has to do with inclusive digital communication and how some search engine requirements may potentially play a role in how information is accessed by marginalized communities in the future.

Anna Finch,

Providing I&R these days is like building a house of cards on the roof of a city bus. There’s COVID, a social justice revolution, wildfires, tornadoes, and floods. Add in mass evictions, a worsening housing crisis, and a shrinking safety net. You need to ask and enter demographic questions, search for services, and tune out the background noise from coworkers at the office or pets and family at home. It’s a LOT.

This session will help fill up your toolbox with ideas for managing your own stress and that of your callers while fulfilling data entry requirements and providing useful information and resources. You will leave with more confidence to make it a good I&R day.

Key Takeaways:

• Identify stressors and things that make a call difficult
• Recognize and own the impact of these daily stressors
• Collect scripting to help manage common challenges
• Develop tools for avoiding and de-escalating difficult situations
• Remember self-care and start doing it

Lacey Hanson, Program and Technical Specialist for the ADRC of Oregon

Cassandra Hutchinson, Policy Analyst

(1 hour session)

ON211's transition to a new data management system has been an opportunity to consider Taxonomy customization from new perspectives: the perspective of a new tool with different processes and designs; and the perspective of new users, such as navigators searching for services, or planning bodies receiving reports on callers' needs. 
This workshop will present the core rationales and principles to consider when making Taxonomy customization/indexing recommendations that facilitate consistency among multiple data contributors while meeting needs for varied purposes. 

Key Takeaways:

• Understand the rationale behind ON211's indexing standards
• Make better indexing decisions using a customized Taxonomy
• Find and use resources to support the indexing process

Corinne Gallois, Coordinator French Services

(1 hour session)

Training programs geared for leaders are often flooded with lessons on communication, however, frontline staff are rarely trained in the nuances of communicating with their supervisors. “How to Train Your Supervisor” is focused on teaching frontline staff how to not only talk to their supervisor but also how to teach their supervisor to hear them. This session shows staff how to identify what they need, and how to ask their supervisor for support in achieving their goals. Attendees will leave this session empowered to drive conversations with their supervisors with confidence.

Key Takeaways:

• Understand why their supervisor is so busy, and why that doesn’t matter.
• Discover what they want and how they achieve it.
• Learn how to request and hear criticism.
• Know when it’s time to dig in or dig out.

Margaret Telsch-Williams, Contact Center Supervisor