Summary:
BPTI changed its structure from a partnership structure to a single organization with an Advisory Committee to gain the approval from the Association of SW Boards (ASWB) ACE program. Now, ASWB-ACE has approved ten individual BPTI courses. Individual course approval means that BPTI courses can be marketed for CE credit for social workers throughout the US and in parts of Canada.
In 2020, Lead Tech R. Mohrmann created the capability of automatic grading and certificate production by the training site. He also created the capability for participants to pay for courses and recorded webinars through Paypal. This has substantially altered the quantity of courses that the site is able to offer. Clinical videos are now being stored at the training site on the BPTI website. Taxes were filed in April, 2020. The non-profit only has to file a postcard with the IRS, given its low income.
Live Webinars were offered in March by Tina Iler, LCSWR (Motivational Interviewing: An Intro to the Basics), R. Campbell, LCSW and R. Coleman, LMSW (Cannabis), and George Ramos, LMHC, Ph.D. (Assessing Immigrant Survivors of IPV-DV (VAWA ). Live webinars were also offered in Oct-Nov, 2020 by Tim Campbell, Ph.D. (Ethics for the Counseling Professions), R. Campbell, LCSW and R. Coleman, LMSW (Screenings, Brief Interventions, Referrals and Beyond!) and by Afua Forson, MD, MFT-Assoc (Couples Dynamics and Recovery).
Participants from New York and other states registered for 102 A/V (audio/video) courses, 13 recorded webinars and 62 live webinars in 2020.
Data from the research concerning the experience of Latino counselors in New York State was harvested and a paper on the preliminary outcome was written by Campbell, Ramos and Smita Dewan, faculty at CUNY who did the statistical analysis for the paper. “Acculturation and Latinx Presence in New York State Substance Use Disorder Treatment” was submitted to the Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse in September, 2020. It is available to read on the website.
Two proposed BPTI research projects which involve Ethics and SBIRT have been approved by the New England IRB. The NASW IRB is involved in approving them, also, since NASW members will be participating. The NASW IRB approved the Ethics study before it recessed in November, 2020. The approval for the SBIRT study will have to come after March, 2021.
Further notes: The Spanish CBT course has no one to update and certify the integrity of the Spanish translation, so the Spanish CBT course is becoming obsolete.
A new research assistant, Julio Rodriguez, has been approved by the Board.
Renewal contracts as CE providers for NYSED were filed in December.
Dated notes:
January 13, 2020: Email exchange between Board members and Partners: Tina Iler, George Ramos, Tim Campbell, Richard Coleman, Lynne Rachlin
A major change in the structure of BPTI is being requested by ASWB. Since the ASWB will not recognize “partners” in the creation of the courses, the Board and the Partners voted to accept a change such that all current partners would become part of the CE Advisory group with Tina Iler as the SW consultant and liaison with ASWB. Ruth Campbell will perform the role of CE Director. The Board was unanimous in its approval of the changes. That means that the videos will be kept on-site at the BPTI website, and creators of the courses will be paid a percentage of all proceeds for the creation of a course. There will be no more partnership contracts or certificates.
January 15, 2020: on-site meeting between Treasurer and Sec’y
R. Mohrmann, as Lead Tech, has created a place in the database for posttest urls to be listed. He demonstrated access and “proof of concept” for automatic grading. The Research assistant will be adding all the posttest Q&As to the database so that automatic grading can occur.
January 16, 2020: Email exchange between ASWB, SW Consultant and Sec’y
A major change in understanding of the ASWB approval was shared between the ASWB personnel and the SW consultant, Tina Iler, and the CE Director, Ruth Campbell. ASWB approval of individual courses means that BPTI will have the ability to give credits to SWers throughout the jurisdictions that accept ASWB ACE-approved courses, not just NJ.
Feb 9-11, 2020: Email exchange between Board members: Differentiating CEs by degree in NY State
Following the ASWB’s suggestion, the Board voted unanimously to name Ruth Campbell as an instructor/narrator on all A/V courses. Instructors who are supposed to be demonstrating techniques will be listed as “clinical” instructors and both will be rated in the posttest.
Following the ASWB’s recommendation, credits for the A/V courses were reduced for SWers and LMHCS as follows: CBT = 2.25 CEs, MI = 2 CEs, COD = 2 CEs, Ethics = 2 CEs. The Board approved a differentiation between credits allotted for SWers and LMHCs and those allotted for CASACs. For CASACs, the courses have been approved by OASAS at 6 credits. There is a substantial difference in average educational level for social workers vs CASACs.
Research data collection noted that 50% of CASACs have degrees lower than a masters, while most social workers have Master’s level education. ALL the LMHCs in our data had Master’s or above. The Board provided this as a rationale to the ASWB for setting two levels of credit for coursework.
March 30, 2020: Email exchanges between Board members and CE Advisory group: Automatic grading, Clarifying Pretest wording
BPTI gave certificates for 14 online courses in February: 6 CBT courses (all were given for free), 2 Ethics courses, 4 MI courses and 2 COD courses. Most of the focus for the month’s advertising efforts were on the three LIVE webinars that are being offered, one on Motivational Interviewing basics, one on Cannabis, and one on assessing Immigrants for IPV-DV. Sneak-peek: There have been about 30 signups for the LIVE webinars, which will be counted in March’s total, reported in April.
SurveyMonkey has been upgraded, and Rich has begun to arrange automatic grading of the posttests for all courses. This will allow a significant increase in the speed at which people can get their certificates, since the grading will no longer be done manually.
The Board, this month, is discussing how to handle approaches from companies or rehabs that would suggest we are endorsing them.
ASWB and MFT applications: The completed recorded webinars (along with posttests) will be added to the ASWB individual level application which has not been completed yet. The disclaimer at the beginning of the pretests has been holding up progress. The word “voluntary” (ASWB objected) has been deleted from the disclaimer, and changed wording has been double-checked with the New England IRB for research-worthiness. The finalized disclaimer seems to be acceptable to the NEIRB. Ruth is double-checking with ASWB personnel to see if the finalized pretest disclaimer is acceptable to them.
April 15, 2020: Report by Zoom from Lead Tech to Sec’y: Enabling Paypal payments for courses
Lead Tech R. Mohrmann. refined the way that participants would pay for courses by adding a Paypal button beside each course. He added support for paypal purchases of webinars as well as courses.
May 15, 2020: Report by Zoom from Lead Tech to Sec’y: Enabling scripts so that new users can be invited to courses through email
Lead Tech continued to enhance the signup requirement by adding the capability to send invitations for specific courses. He also improved error checking on the newuser page.
August 21, 2020: Email exchange between Board members: Losing a Spanish translator
George Ramos proposed that Anandy Germosen become part of the CE Advisory Group. She had done all the Spanish translations for the CBT A/V course. Questions were asked by the Board concerning her ability to contribute to BPTI by continuing and updating the Spanish translation of the CBT course. Her time commitments will not allow her to do that, so the Board refused her application.
September 4, 2020: Email exchanges between Board members: Adding a research assistant
Sec’y R. Campbell proposed, and the Board unanimously approved Julio Rodriguez as a research assistant to help with mailings, etc.
November 11, 2020: Zoom communication from Lead Tech Mohrmann: Automatic grading and automatic printout of certificates
R. Mohrmann has notified the Board that he has finalized automatic grading of posttests for all courses, and participants can automatically download their certificates. He has also created a looped ability of the training site to access information about courses from the website, and an automatic ability of people who are interested in courses to pay via paypal. To borrow from Rich’s descriptions, it’s auto-magic!
Beta-testing will be undertaken by Ruth Campbell and Richard Coleman.
October-November, 2020: Email exchanges between Board members and members of the CE Advisory group: Three live webinars completed
BPTI held three live webinars in October and November, 2020, with 33 certificates given out for those who attended. The webinars focused on ethics (Tim Campbell), SBIRT interventions (Ruth Campbell, Richard Coleman), and couples (Afua Forson). The webinars were all given remotely on Zoom. They were approved by OASAS for CASACs, as well as provider level approval was given by NYSED to provide CEs for NYS Swers and LMHCs.
November 11. 2020: Zoom communication between Lead Tech and Sec’y: Password protection for course access
Lead Tech R. Mohrmann reported that he had added the capability to password protect a user’s secret code to provide additional security. Note: BPTI is not using this function yet, but it may be needed as we continue to work to satisfy the requirements of relevant agencies.
November 18, 2020: Zoom communication between Lead Tech and Sec’y: Access of research participants to online classes controlled
The scripts which will control access of research participants to the online classes are finalized.
November 21, 2020: Email communication from NEIRB to Sec’y BPTI: Approval of NEIRB for revised informed consent for SBIRT study
Approval was given by NEIRB for the revised informed consent document for the SBIRT study. That information was passed to the NASW IRB in order to receive permission to begin the two research studies with members of the NASW State chapters in Maine, Virginia and North Dakota.
November 25, 2020: Zoom meeting between Lead Tech and Sec’y: Foolproofing signup for the courses discussed
As a preliminary to the launch of the research studies, Lead Tech R. Mohrmann is fool-proofing the sign-up page for the courses and webinars. Essentially, no-one from states outside NY will be able to sign up for NY courses, rather, social workers or attendees from outside NY state will be channeled into the ASWB studies.
December 2, 2020: Zoom meeting between Lead Tech and Sec’y: Querying database to find how many LMHCs began courses between 2018-2020.
NYSED Contract to provide CEs for NYS LMHCs is due for renewal. As a preliminary to Board discussion about renewing, Lead Tech R. Mohrmann will query the database to find out how many LMHCs signed up for courses in the last three years.
December 31, 2020: Applications to NYSED for both SWer and LMHC CE providership by BPTI completed.
After unanimous vote, done through the email, by Board members to continue offering continuing education to NYS LMHCs, the applications for BPTI to continue to offer continuing education to both NYS SWers and LMHCs were completed, submitted by Sec’y R. Campbell.