Fall 2008

 
QPR Instructor Newsletter, October 2008

Hello everyone! We hope you enjoyed the summer and are looking forward to a productive and rewarding fall.

There will be two fall newsletters this year, with a Winter issue to follow in January. This, the first issue, will cover a single item and report on a major, new development at the QPR Institute. The second Fall issue will cover other program developments, institute news and will include a primer in social marketing theory and practice. Suicide prevention education is not an easy sell, but we hope this mini-training effort will be useful to you.

For timely news and developments in the field of suicide prevention and for those not already signed up for the SPRC weekly newsletter, we strongly recommend it (http://www.sprc.org/news/index.asp). We also strongly recommend you get on the mailing list for the SPAN USA newsletter for action alerts and other matters of importance to all our work.



Join us for a free webinar, Strategies to Help Community Providers Prevent Suicide in Veterans on Wednesday,

October 15 at 2pm EST

with Paul Quinnett, PhD and President and CEO of The QPR Institute

Contact us for access!



A New Educational Partnership!

We are excited to report to you that the QPR Institute has become an partner of Essential Learning. Essential Learning is the largest provider of e-learning services in the United States and serves more than 450 behavioral health and human service organizations in 46 states. This partnership has been in the works for more than a year. The partnership and our initial listing of Institute online training programs was formally announced by Essential Learning on September 10th, World Suicide Prevention Day.

In a nutshell, the Institute took this action for several reasons, not the least of which includes the rapid advancement and scientific support for e-learning outcomes in education and training. Utilizing e-learning technologies will enable us train thousands of Gatekeepers a day instead of thousands a month. With $4.00 gas, online training will not only lower cost and increase learner convenience but will make suicide prevention education available in rural America where suicide rates are highest.

Three other reasons compelled us to make this investment. These are:

  1. All QPR online training programs are now certified for continuing education credit by all major behavioral health professions.
  2. The Institute’s plan to support the Joint Commission’s 2007 patient safety goal can now be more readily achieved as our full range of suicide risk reduction trainings are now available online 24/7 for any interested organization.
  3. Online training generates interest in onsite training which will lead to more requests for training from all of you. To date, most of our requests for online training have included onsite as well.

Last, but perhaps of most importance to us, QPR Gatekeeper Online Training will be made available through behavioral health and substance abuse treatment organizations DIRECTLY to consumers and their loved ones! Though their own web sites, participating organizations will provide online QPR training to their consumers and stakeholders through what are called Community Access Sites. In a word, QPR training will soon be available to those individuals and families we all know to be at elevated risk for suicidal behaviors. Face-to-face Gatekeeper training to groups like the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and others should also increase. We consider this community-based, family-centric delivery of QPR training to be a major breakthrough in mass, public health education.

What does this mean for you?
Based on our research and work with Essential Learning, we can expect the following in the coming months:

  • Suicide prevention will receive an increase in interest from leadership throughout the behavioral health industry
  • Greater demand for onsite training and “live” classroom training is predicted
  • QPR Gatekeeper training will lead to requests for more advanced clinical and assessment training for healthcare professionals and major community stakeholders

How can I participate?
We expect this new partnership for the online delivery of suicide prevention education will create new and additional requests for what we call “blended training.” Blended training involves learners mastering knowledge content via e-learning followed by classroom sessions for skill development. If you wish to get more involved we ask that each of you consider the following:

  1. Please review the QPR in the Classroom program description on our home page and consider offering “blended” QPR training for 24/7 facilities, correctional facilities, college students and other groups who may not be able to attend a 2-hour QPR training event. For example, hospital shift workers or correctional facility staff can complete QPR Gatekeeper training online at any time, at their convenience and then attend a 45-minute shift change meeting for a QPR Q&A, role-play and crisis response and referral review.
  2. If you meet the educational qualifications, consider learning to teach either or both of our advanced assessment courses (QPR Suicide Triage and/or QPRT Suicide Risk Assessment). These licensed full-day courses are taught by our Advanced Clinical Trainers. We will also be providing these courses in a blended format (online + classroom).

What else is new?
For organizations wishing to utilize the new QPR Online Gatekeeper Training program, as hosted on our server and offered directly from the QPR Institute, we would like to extend a complimentary online Gatekeeper training experience to any currently Certified QPR Instructor. To receive your free training, simply email Brian at bquinn@turbonet.com or call at 208.882.6160 and request access codes. Once you have taken the training, if you are interested in how the online program can be customized for your organization or community and how our new Learning Management System for Gatekeeper training can collect and analyze survey data and other evaluation data, just ask Brian for a free demonstration.

Finally, as a special benefit for Certified QPR Instructors, we have arranged a 10% discount for all of you who may need to earn continuing education credits for your licensure. Essential Learning programs are widely approved for continuing professional education. To receive your discount on training for more than 400 online courses, simply find and add the course(s) you want to your shopping cart and enter the code 'QPR08' when prompted to receive your discount.

Staff and Faculty
QPR Institute

Keep up the wonderful and life-saving work!
The QPR Institute
P.O. Box 2867
Spokane, WA 99220

e-mail: qinstitute@qwestoffice.net
www.qprinstitute.com
Phone: 888-726-7926