CCSR Selected for VISTA Intermediary Sponsor to Address Poverty in Kansas

Public Health Initiatives VISTA Fellows Austin Burke, BS

The Center for Community Support and Research (CCSR) was recently selected by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) to serve Kansas as an AmeriCorps VISTA Intermediary Sponsor. AmeriCorps VISTA is a national and community service program administered by the CNCS placing volunteers in poverty-fighting organizations across the United States.  Through this award, CCSR will create WSU VISTA Fellows connecting them with nonprofits, government, and public health serving agencies statewide. This project is an innovative way to connect WSU with community organizations that address poverty.

Through the VISTA Fellows Project, WSU graduates will engage in one year of hands-on service in their community while applying knowledge, expertise and skills they learned during their educational experience. “It’s a way to put their degree to use while giving back to their community,” said Teresa Strausz, MSOD, LMSW, CCSR Community Engagement and Learning Coordinator. WSU VISTA Fellows help build capacity of nonprofits and other organizations whose missions and/or services impact those who are economically disadvantaged.

The inaugural group of VISTA Fellows arrived in Kansas on July 18 serving Peace Connections/Circles of Hope in Harvey County, Communities In Schools of Wichita/Sedgwick County, Rainbows United, Inc. and CCSR’s Public Health Initiatives team. You can find these Fellows engaged in a variety of activities including program development, marketing/communications, fund development/grant writing, and volunteer management. 

Scott Wituk, CCSR’s Executive Director said, “We are honored to be selected by CNCS to serve as an AmeriCorps VISTA Intermediary Sponsor.  This is a great opportunity for recent WSU graduates to apply what they have learned through their WSU coursework. I think they will learn a lot more through this applied experience and it will also position them to be more engaged citizens for the rest of their lives.  I also know we have a lot of hard, challenging work in front of us, but are hopeful that in a few years, dozens of WSU VISTA Fellows will be actively engaged in addressing poverty throughout Kansas.”

WSU VISTA Fellows serve 40 hours per week for one year, receiving an educational stipend in addition to a modest living allowance. CCSR accepts applications anytime from organizations interested in hosting VISTA Fellows as well as students or graduates interested in serving as a WSU VISTA Fellow.  

More information is provided online at www.wichita.edu/CCSR/AmericorpsVISTA. For the application process or to discuss VISTA contact Teresa Strausz at teresa.strausz@wichita.edu or 316-978-6778.

Positive Changes to Certified Peer Specialist Training and Certification

In order to expand and strengthen peer support in Kansas, CCSR is partnering with the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services to advance peer specialist training and certification. The details are still being worked out, but here is what we know for sure:

• Multiple levels of certification will be offered to provide a career path for peer specialists (those currently certified will keep their certification)
• Entry level peer support training will be open to all those interested who self-identify as having direct, lived experience with a mental health recovery
• Those hired to provide peer support under Medicaid will now have one year to complete billing-level certification via an “in training” status
• Peer support training will be offered regionally, details to follow

The CPS training team is excited to be able to support a stronger career path for peer specialists and welcomes your input. Please contact Lael Ewy, MFA, CPS, at lael.ewy@wichita.edu with suggestions or questions as the process moves forward.

Hands-On Expereince: Public Health Intern Contributes To Billing Initiatives Project | by Elizabeth Toney

Elizabeth Toney

In the beginning…all I knew about the Center for Community Support and Research (CCSR) was what I could assume from the name of the organization and its association with Wichita State University. Community suggested one’s local neighborhood, support spoke of helping, lending a hand, and its association with WSU spoke of education. When I found that CCSR had a current public health initiatives project that involved medical billing and coding I was excited to get the chance to learn how public assistance programs functioned. Through their billing project I hoped to gain a better understanding of the public health reimbursement process. This was going to be an opportunity to put into action the skills I learned from my bachelor’s degree in Health Services Management and associate’s degree in billing and coding.

Working with the Public Health Initiatives team of Sonja, Aaron, Vanessa, and Kristina along with Executive Director Scott Wituk I have had an opportunity to become exposed to a public health program that helps those who struggle with access to health care. CCSR is currently involved with a Local Health Department Billing initiative project for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) and Kansas Association of Local Health Departments (KALHD) towards maximizing sustainability of the local health departments. The Billing initiative provided opportunity for me to utilize my skills in determining types of valuable training programs that would help improve the billing practices and processes of health departments and minimize claim denials.

After research, the necessary information was utilized to create a two page training and professional certification guide that can be used when deciding to invest in training for billing staff to become certified. The guide provides sources for online training programs and a choice of medical biller certifications available. Though certification is not required it can benefit staff at the facilities obtaining reimbursement. This hands-on project gave me an opportunity to improve my research, decision making, planning, and communication skills.

This practicum opportunity allowed me to improve upon my own leadership skills. I had the opportunity to attend meetings of local coalition groups like Interfaith Ministries and Visioneering Wichita and participate in the discussion of past and upcoming public programs to assist those in need. All of my core competency skills have been improved through observing the leadership style of the Public Health Initiative team and the CCSR staff. It has been a real pleasure to have the opportunity to work with a group of dedicated people.

Internship in Public Health | With comments by Breanna Sneed

Breanna at a conference in April.

The Public Health Initiatives team at the Wichita State University Center for Community Support and Research (CCSR) continues to expand its reach and scope, impacting a variety of individuals, communities, and systems across the State. At the individual level, the team works closely with students from various programs at WSU, including those working to complete their degrees in Health Service Management and Community Development. 

“My internship experience at [CCSR] was a great experience for me”, writes Breanna Sneed, who joined CCSR in her final semester in the program. “It opened my eyes to things that I was not aware of in Public Health.”

At the community level, the CCSR Public Health Initiatives (PHI) team supports initiatives like the Visioneering Health Alliance in the Wichita Metropolitan Statistical Area and Project 17, representing 17 counties in Southeast Kansas. The Visioneering Health Alliance recently held a forum at the Kansas Leadership Center focused on community efforts to improve healthy eating behaviors.

Of the many speakers at this forum, Breanna writes, “I was ‘wowed’ by Mim McKenzie, of the Greater Wichita YMCA, and her information about the YMCA’s efforts to improve the community and outreach to young people.”

To support Project 17’s efforts to develop a regional Health Improvement Plan that will be used to work toward their goal of using regional cooperation to improve the quality of life for their communities, Breanna assisted in gathering research data from the public health systems in Southeast Kansas. “With this project, I was able to develop multiple core competency skills including leadership and communication.”

In addition to supporting the Kansas Department of Health and Environment in the roll-out and support of a new initiative within the KanCare system, called “Health Homes”, and other system level initiatives, CCSR’s PHI team is partnering with the Kansas Association of Local Health Departments to develop prioritized funding recommendations that aim to improve the public health emergency preparedness system across the state.

“This project allowed me to demonstrate leadership and system thinking as I assisted in putting together questions for those participating in the emergency preparedness planning so that, when we came together, it would open the door for better discussion.” Breanna Sneed writes, “By doing my internship at CCSR, it has helped me grow and my leadership and public health skills have greatly improved.”

In keeping with the CCSR mission, the PHI team will continue to work with individuals, communities and systems to strengthen Kansas. This will include working with students like Breanna Sneed and others, who are essential to our success.

My Internship | by Cameron Hall

My internship at the Wichita State University’s Center for Community Support and Research (CCSR) has been invaluable. As a marketing major, I have learned that some aspects of nonprofit marketing are different from traditional marketing. I developed and implemented our social media for CCSR’s 30^th anniversary. In addition, I also discovered some challenges to being part of the University system.

Wu and Cameron

I participate on an anniversary open house planning committee and everyone was happy with our media coverage. I coordinated advertising on the campus TV circuit. At first it was a challenge to find the people I needed to communicate with, but as time progressed I become more confident and was able to meet my goals. Our social media campaign had just as big an effect as the other options we considered. The numbers of “likes” to our Facebook posts and pages have definitely increased.

My ability to stay organized has improved drastically. There were always four or five things that I could be working on at any given time. My intern supervisor, Angela Gaughan, helped keep me on track and I was able to develop an efficient routine. Everyone at the CCSR was very helpful and willing to fit me into their schedule. For example, when I interview Operations Coordinator, Candy Youle, she set up a time the day after I asked to meet with her. Seeing everyone at the CCSR balance such packed schedules has been motivational. I get more done in a day now than I did when I began my internship.

The one thing that stuck out the most to me during this internship was how little recognition CCSR gets. I learned about their specific target audiences; coalitions, nonprofits, communities, and other organizations that benefit from CCSR’s work. Outside of these, not very many people know or understand how great the center is for their communities. More people are becoming aware of CCSR’s influence both in and outside of their target audiences. Hopefully this trend will continue, because CCSR has a huge impact on the state of Kansas. I’ve enjoyed being a part of the efforts.

Certified Peer Specialists training expands to include advanced training opportunities

Certified Peer Specialists (CPS) are professionals committed to building on their existing base of knowledge and staying up-to-date on new developments in their field.  They want to see that their profession, with its unique emphasis on shared experience, continues to grow and be used effectively in communities and organizations across Kansas.

CCSR’s CPS training faculty is providing advanced trainings and a new approach to individual and organizational support for individuals who work at Community Mental Health Centers, State Psychiatric Hospitals, as well as other venues.

CPS advanced trainings enhance the abilities of peer specialists to facilitate the recoveries of other mental health consumers in Kansas. Like the peer specialist basic training, advanced trainings emphasize the use of shared experience and promote self-determination and empowerment.

“[T]he training had immense educational value and was very eye opening to the issues in this field,” said Christopher Leach. “Also I felt that the diversity in the members of the training team complimented one another wonderfully to deliver a very well rounded training experience.”

CCSR offers more than a dozen advanced trainings covering a broad range of CPS-specific topics such as:  relationship-building, trauma-informed care, and spirituality. 

In addition to the advanced trainings for CPSs, the CCSR Research Team is continuing efforts to expand the number of questions that can be used on the certification test for CPSs. Although the actual length of the test may not change, having such a question bank is a way to ensure validity, reliability and generalizability of the test.  It is hoped that through the Research Team’s work, the certification test can become a standard for the field.

Funding for CCSR’s Mental Health Initiative from the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services allows advanced trainings and technical assistance to be provided at no cost to Kansas community mental health centers and state hospitals. Interested organizations outside of the Kansas public mental health system are encouraged to contact CCSR Mental Health Initiative staff about professional development opportunities for their peer support providers.

A list of available Advanced Trainings is available on the Training Teams website, TrainingTeams.org. Custom trainings are available. For more information on trainings, contact Christine Young, CPS, peer educator, at christine.young@wichita.edu or (316) 978-3224. More information is also available here.

For individual or organizational technical assistance, contact Simon Messmer, CPS, Mental Health systems specialist at simon.messmer@wichita.edusimon.messmer@wichita.edu or (316) 712-9500.