Something Useful!

September 06, 2021

As part of our ongoing effort to try to make the mandatory elements of staff training and competencies as usable as possible we have today posted several versions of the Supervisor’s Training.  As you may recall, and as we have reviewed on several calls, the Supervisor’s Training, which was effective July 1, 2020, consists of three modules about a variety of topics in leadership, management, and roles and responsibilities which many providers find bear either no relationship to the actual job of the front-line supervisor or contain information which is contradictory to the provider’s policy, procedure and practice and unnecessary for the supervisor’s job performance!

Since there is no option for the supervisor but to page through each module online in order to get to the DSP Orientation Test (identical to the one they have likely already taken) which must be taken in order for a certificate to be issued which is the record of completion of the training to be retained in their personnel file, we have posted some useful tools. 

In addition to the pdf version of each Module containing the slides and the notes, we have posted for each module a “word” version and a “word” version with the notes deleted.  You now have the opportunity to edit the notes to reflect your specific circumstances, policies and procedures or simply type in what to want your supervisors to know about each topic and print the revised modules for them to review while paging through the presentation.  The material is posted on the DD Waiver Implementation Member’s Page


Please also note we have added a copy of the DSP Orientation Manual (2016) – the Department has contracted with VCU to produce training material, unfortunately links to websites are extraordinarily unreliable as a method to locate material which is relevant and unchanging!


We do appreciate the efforts being made by the staff at DBHDS, however, we are and will continue to be frustrated that providers are spending time, energy, and funds they do not have to make workable something that should never have happened.  Stay tuned for an update on the new modules to be added to the DSP Orientation!

AND!  The updated Competency Form has been posted on the DMAS Forms File.   It is dated 7/21/21, but was not posted in July – we will try to determine a more legitimate effective date!