Educational Practices in Human Services Organizations

Human Service Organizations (HSO) are groups, both public and private with one main goal, to enhance human well-being. These organizations provide a variety of services for both children and adults including mental health care and educational programs. With the decrease of federal funding for these services, many private HSOs have been created to supplement the void. To ensure that these HSOs provide adequate services to their patients, it is vital that they adopt an effective model. The Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) model is an effective approach to designing, implementing, and maintaining services within HSOs. Each volume in this series highlights key concepts and applications pertinent to each division of HSOs and is written in a user-friendly format. This helps providers easily integrate the model into their own practice or organization. Educational Practices in Human Services Organizations: EnvisionSMART?: A Melmark Model of Administration and Operation demonstrates how to develop an educational program within HSOs, while adhering to state and federal guidelines. This book reviews various evidence-based instructional methodologies, including discrete trial training, errorless learning, and incidental teaching. To ensure the success of any program, it is important to record data for performance assessment. The authors provide instructions and templates on how to record students' progress helping to drive data informed decisions. - Outlines steps for developing standardized curriculums and lesson plans - Includes templates for recording forms and checklists for easy implementation - Reviews steps to ensure state and federal compliance - Describes strategies for developing interdisciplinary service teams

Helena Maguire serves as the Executive Director of Melmark New England. She oversees the development and implementation of programs and services, as well as the daily operations for Melmark New England. She develops strategic objectives for the Massachusetts division, and provides leadership to direct reports in order to assure the achievement of these objectives. Ms. Maguire supports the CEO and Board of Directors through various committees and activities, and assumes responsibility for policy development, quality assurance, risk management, regulatory compliance, fiscal integrity, and excellence in care and delivery of all services. Ms. Maguire has worked extensively in the field of community-based human service delivery systems in Massachusetts. She has served as a Program Director at Vinfen Corporation and as the Director of Adult Services at the May Institute. In both positions, Ms. Maguire was responsible for the development and implementation of staff orientation curriculum, as well as supervisory personnel education and in-service training for all staff. Ms. Maguire has presented numerous papers on staff management and staff training techniques, both at the local level and at the national level. Ms. Maguire is an Adjunct Professor at Endicott College, where she teaches all Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)-based courses for its Master's program, and the University of Massachusetts-Boston, where she leads a five-course graduate series on ABA.