Client interview with Brandy Arana, Instructional Designer
Background
Providence Human Services is now Pathways by Molina, one of the largest national providers of accessible, outcome-based behavioral and mental health services. More than 6,000 employees provide the highest-quality home- and community-based social services and nonemergency transportation services to nearly 17 million individuals in 23 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Pathways offers a full spectrum of social service and behavioral health solutions, including Youth & Family Services, Adult Services, and Prevention Services.
Challenge
Not only does Pathways operate in over 20 states and provide an array of services, they are growing; opening new offices and expanding services offered. They needed an easier, more scalable and affordable way to train staff on evidence based practices, trauma informed care, create career paths for staff development and promotion, and better capture in-house expertise. With offering only live trainings, it was hard to ensure follow-through and often after the initial training and implementation, things would trail off.
Solution
Since implementing the Relias learning management system (LMS) years ago, Pathways has transformed their corporate training program. They use a blended learning approach, using live training, teleclasses, and online content, both standard Relias courses and ones built in-house. When asked about the impact of their program, Brandy Arana, Instructional Designer said, “I would just really encourage people to think about the blended learning aspect. There are quite a few folks … who are stuck, who say online training is not nearly as good as live training, and for somethings that might be the case. However, I haven’t found a case yet that can’t be turned into an effect interactive online training.”
“The system allows us to approach our training needs with a blended learning style. Allowing us to utilize our LIVE training and experts while following up with online trainings for the same subject to increase and maintain our Clinical IQ. Relias has the flexibility to do almost anything you want, it is a matter of having the capability of looking at the system and being able to think outside of the box to develop creative ways of making it work for you.”
They have seen an improvement not just in cost-savings but the quality and effectiveness of trainings provided. For example, they successfully implemented trauma-informed care a few years ago through a blended approach of live teleclasses and online trainings, developed in-house. They then utilized the Relias LMS to provide a certificate of completion with continuing education credits from the ASWB and NBCC. They continue to support and expand trauma informed care through training. Often the buy-in with training is at the beginning, when implementing something new, but then it wears off and disappears over time. With Relias, they were able to get creative, reinforce and retrain on important initiatives, like trauma-informed care.
Results
- Training follows the employee–with transfer and promotion opportunities, training goes with them, easy to track and modify training plans for new roles
- Consistency of service delivery–acquisition employees easily get on the same system and training plan, delivering high quality services.
- Improved quality of care–better follow through and implementation of learning, huge benefit in corrective action plans
