Blog
Training for Excellence
October 18, 2017

CUCS’ Training Institute has been training professionals in the human service, behavioral health and justice-informed field for years. Their trainings encompass a wide range of topics, including working with the chronically homelessness and best practices in supportive housing, behavioral health, case management and clinical and evidence based practices. One of the most requested trainings is Critical Time Intervention (CTI) which can be accompanied by Wellness Self Management (WSM) trainings. Both are critical to the work done by professionals in social services.

CUCS started training professionals on CTI in 2007 and since then, our trainers have traveled all over the nation, and even to Canada, to teach the evidence-based model.

CTI is a 9 month model that assists individuals and families transitioning typically from homelessness into the community. It is delivered in three phases, each lasting three months, with the goal of connecting the client to a variety of supports in the community to ensure housing stability; these connections to formal and informal supports hopefully last beyond the 9 months.

In Phase 1 the model emphasizes listening to client’s goals and aspirations, engaging and building trust, and making critically important connections that will create maximum housing stability and alleviate the anxiety associated the transition from homelessness into housing. Phase 2 stresses developing important linkages while slowly fading away from the client as they regain independence until by Phase 3 less time is spent with clients and more time is spent coordinating the providers with each other so they wrap their services around the client to ensure the best services.

These support networks are built using both formal and informal support. “Your family could be part of your team, or a friend, a nurse or a doctor, whoever is in your life,” explains Mike Golub, a long time CUCS trainer. Mike believes that CTI is very compatible with another evidence-based practice the Institute offers: Wellness Self Management (WSM).

The WSM is a 50 class evidence based curriculum that helps individuals with mental illness set meaningful goals and acquire important life skills needed to begin their journey of personal recovery.

The training walks professionals through the program’s 11 different topics, including stress management, ways to stay healthy mentally and physically, and teaches them how to be a good facilitator, as the program is often taught as a class.

“WSM gives people the things they need like coping skills, advocacy skills, and communication skills and teaches clients that it is okay to ask for help. Being a good facilitator means helping connect each of their stories with each others so that they feel like they are not alone and have support and hope,” Mike says. WSM helps individuals create support networks, which are important in CTI, which is why the two trainings are compatible.

Aside from professionals working with the homeless population, Mike explains that recently he has seen CTI being used with different populations, like families and people coming out of hospitals and prisons.

The CUCS Institute is recognized as a continuing education provider by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work for licensed social workers and by New York State’s Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS). For information on registering for a training or training content, check out the Institute webpage.