Register Now for the Choices, Inc., Chick-fil-A Leadercast Event!

Choices is pleased to announce is will be hosting live broadcasts of Chick-fil-A’s Leadercast event on May 7th. This one day event features some of the world’s leading speakers on leadership, including former Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy. Check out our web site for ticket pricing and event locations. This is sure to be an exciting and motivating event for managers and leaders.

Follow us on Twitter for further event information and updates: @ChoicesInc.

Speakers include:

Jim Collins
Author of Good to Great, How the Mighty Fall, and co-author of Built to Last

Tony Dungy (Pre-Recorded)
Retired head coach for the Indianapolis Colts

John C Maxwell
Leadership expert and best-selling author of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

Steve Uzzell
Award-winning corporate photographer and former staff member of National Geographic

Mark Sanborn
Best-selling author of The Fred Factor

Connie Podesta
Expert in the psychology of human behavior and leadership development

Jim Goodnight
CEO of SAS Institute, Inc.

Ed Bastian
President of Delta Air Lines

Ben Carson
Neurosurgeon and Professor of Pediatric Neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Chip Heath
Author of Made to Stick, Columnist for Fast Company, and Stanford Professor

A Letter from Youth Emergency Services Director John Kennedy

Hello community partners,

As you know, Choices managed front end systems in Marion County that included services for children and families at risk for abuse/neglect, (YES – 12 years) status offenders and their families (Back to Home – 11 ½ years) and low level delinquent offenses and their families (Youth Reception Center 2 ½ years) and the Child Abuse Hotline (4 years). Now these services are being absorbed and administered by our local government partners. Everyone in these four programs has done an outstanding job of doing the crisis work that we are asked to do whether it was answering crisis calls, taking reports, caring for children facing the trauma of removal from home, meeting face to face with families in trouble or assisting our partners in managing the emergencies.

Our work now is done. We have accomplished what we were asked to do and are very proud of our legacy of quality service to those families in need here in Marion County. We believe we have made a REAL difference in the lives of the children, youth and families who found themselves in crisis and needed immediate attention and intervention.

Most of all, we are grateful for the professional collaboration with all of you. No good work is done in isolation or alone. We were successful because all of you helped us achieve our mission of taking care of kids in crisis and diverting families from further involvement into public systems. Thank you for this opportunity to build a system that we believe was needed in our community. Together, we built something that works and aspects of it will continue to flourish in the years to come.

Happy Holidays,

John Kennedy

400 Families in Need Gather to Receive Toys for Tots Donations

If you have ever wondered what happens to all of the generous donations of toys over the holidays, we invite the media to see the faces of more than 400 families receive 1,200 donated toys from Toys for Tots. Santa Clause is scheduled to attend, and will deliver presents to boys and girls 15 years old and younger.

Families will also be bringing a small donation of their own, as a gratitude to the Toys for Tots program. Rainbows is asking everyone to bring a donation of a canned good, clothing or hygiene item to donate to The Sharing Place. The Sharing Place, a ministry of LCFS, will be sponsoring its annual “Christmas Store” in mid December. This event provides families in need the opportunity to shop for gifts, free of charge, for each member in their household. Individuals, congregations and community groups gathered the Christmas gifts that were donated or purchased through corporate and foundation grants and cash contributions.

The event will be held December 15, 2009 from 6:00 – 8:30pm at the LCFS Campus Gymnasium located at 1525 N. Ritter Ave., in Indianapolis, IN.

For more information about Rainbows, please follow this link.

For more information about LCFS please contact Patrick Jamison at 317.372.8387.

Check out the Annual Systems of Care Conference Yearbook

In celebration of the 9th annual Indiana Systems of Care conference, we decided to launch the first ever conference yearbook and online photo gallery. Whether you missed your chance to attend, or just want to go back and remember this year’s conference, the yearbook will serve as a chronicle for the many highlights of our annual conference.

You can check out the yearbook on our web site.

The Choices TA Center

Continuing our video series on “What does (insert program here) do?”, we bring you another short overview of one of our programs: The Choices Technical Assistance Center:

Choices TA Center from Choices Inc on Vimeo.

Youth Emergency Services

Choices is often asked “What does (insert program here) do?”. Now, we could tell you, we could send you to our web site, or we could post a blog entry. But we are excited to offer something new! Check out this very short overview of one of our programs: Youth Emergency Services:

Youth Emergency Services from Choices Inc on Vimeo.

The Problem with Positive Thinking

From Seth Godin’s Blog

All the evidence I’ve seen shows that positive thinking and confidence improves performance. In anything.

Give someone an easy math problem, watch them get it right and then they’ll do better on the ensuing standardized test than someone who just failed a difficult practice test.

No, positive thinking doesn’t allow you to do anything, but it’s been shown over and over again that it improves performance over negative thinking.

Key question then: why do smart people engage in negative thinking? Are they actually stupid?

The reason, I think, is that negative thinking feels good. In its own way, we believe that negative thinking works. Negative thinking feels realistic, or soothes our pain, or eases our embarrassment. Negative thinking protects us and lowers expectations.

In many ways, negative thinking is a lot more fun than positive thinking. So we do it.

If positive thinking was easy, we’d do it all the time. Compounding this difficulty is our belief that the easy thing (negative thinking) is actually appropriate, it actually works for us. The data is irrelevant. We’re the exception, so we say.

Positive thinking is hard. Worth it, though.

Incremental, not Instantaneous

It’s an old favorite told to impatient children by their parents – “Good things come to those who wait”. You, our faithful Needs Aren’t Services blog readers have been waiting for a few months, but we hope you find the wait has been worth it.

In our fast-paced society, we want it now; we don’t want to wait for anything.  Change and progress is not usually so instantaneous. Incremental, not Instantaneous reminds us to be patient and to recognize that individuals can change and do so at different times and in their own way. It’s important to remember that change happens slowly, but if we pay attention we will see the small, incremental changes that will eventually lead to monumental changes in the lives of children and families. It may sound easy, but for many it can be a difficult behavior to pick up and practice.

As with any of our Phrases that Pay, patience, and the understanding that change is incremental and not instantaneous, doesn’t come easily. In Chinese, the word (or symbol) for patience is an amalgam of two other symbols – one representing the word “blade” and the other representing the word “heart”. Patience can be a painful virtue to learn and practice and can feel impossible to many.

For the helper, it’s not only important to practice patience, but also to impart that wisdom on the individuals receiving the help. Demonstrating to an individual the value of taking manageable, incremental steps towards self-directed recovery is a key element in leading to a successful transition away from system support and into self reliance.

The ancient Greeks also had a firm grasp on the virtues of patience. Aesop’s famed fable The Tortoise and the Hare is the childhood favorite of many for alluding to patience – slow and steady wins the race is now part of most everyone’s vernacular when it comes to speaking on being patient.

As we all work to enhance the lives of youth and their families, it is vitally important to always keep in mind that every individual has a different pace towards their own success. One can never “take too long” when it comes to striving towards improvement; a strong dose of patience will always be a cornerstone of success.

- Andrew Shapiro, Director, Hamilton Choices

Change Agents Change First

Reflecting Upon Change

Change…..what a wonderfully charged word! It conjures up thoughts of “the change we can believe in” and the beautiful, dramatic and historic events of January 20, 2009.

It also brings to my mind a fine book called Changing for Good by Prochaska, Norcross and Diclemente that has helped many people overcome difficulties, from smoking and alcohol abuse to emotional distress and weight control. For me this book on the importance of moving in an orderly fashion through the six stages of change was a catalyst for quitting smoking after many years of precontemplation and contemplation.

Change also makes me think of a book with a horrible title: Change or Die by Alan Deutschman. By no means as depressing as the title suggests, Deutschman contends that some people will never move out of the precontemplation stage when they are denying that they need to change…not even to save their own lives! Instead, this author suggests that many people need hope, belief and inspiration, new skills and ways of thinking, not to be given facts or frightened into change. His method for motivating people to change involves just three key steps: Relate, Repeat and Reframe.

An important phrase that pays used often by those of us at Choices who are responsible for training and coaching staff and clients is CHANGE AGENTS CHANGE FIRST. We exhort care coordinators to model the changes they want to see in their communities and the families they serve. After all, if we are unable or unwilling to change, how can we demand it of others? Nevertheless we soon learn in life, change is not easy – not for individuals and especially not for systems. However our inspiration to change may be the hope and belief that we can and must change for the better, both individually and collectively as a nation, as our new President has so eloquently challenged us to do.

- Janet McIntyre, Director, Choices Technical Assistance Center

Needs Aren’t Services and the Phrases that Pay

Needs Aren’t Services is one of the most powerful practice guidelines known as the 18 Phrases That Pay. It brings to life other phrases like LISTEN, LISTEN AND THEN LISTEN! When families are truly listened to, they are more likely to join with the members of their child and family teams because they don’t feel that others are there trying to “fix” them. When the needs of the youth and family are the goals of care, the wraparound value “Needs Driven” comes to life.

Needs Aren’t Services challenge us to embrace the essential family needs before we offer the categorical array of services. And this in turn also opens the door to an appreciation of family strengths. Listening to youth and families articulate their needs can’t help but grow the team member’s awareness of the wealth of hidden and untapped strengths. Listening to the family’s needs is the key to helping teams become active participants in families developing their own solutions. Needs based services emerge from these solutions. Needs based services differ from traditional services in that they focus on the need first, not fitting the family’s needs into the traditional menu of services. The most evidence based practice comes when the family says, “Yes, my needs were met.”

And perhaps, within the layers of needs for learning, safety, a place called home, meaningful work, health care, benefits and necessary skill sets, there is the need for relationship and community. I frequently hear families saying, “If I had your supports I wouldn’t be here!” The needs for community and natural supports are not just powerful, they are the ultimate classroom in which successful outcomes grow and flourish. These needs aren’t services, they are the window to yet another phrase that pays: No Families no solutions – Know Families Know Solutions.

- Craig Andler, Director, Families Reaching for Rainbows