The Expert Corner The Florida Qualified Brain Injury Support Provider Dissemination Project: From the Classroom to Enhanced Care
Bennie Colbert, M.A., BCBA, Operations Management Program Services Director, NeuroRestorative
The Florida Qualified Brain Injury Support Provider (QBISP) Dissemination Project is designed to incorporate and increase QBISP skills and the consistent mentorship of direct care staff into NeuroRestorative Florida’s model of neurorehabilitation and support.
The QBISP program is an education and mentorship program designed to enhance care to individuals by providing direct care staff with practical skills for developing, enhancing, and repairing therapeutic rapport. In addition, the QBISP program provides practical training in mentorship (coaching) skills that provide program leaders with the tools for mentoring and supporting staff’s use of the QBISP skills.
The QBISP program is a product of the Neurobehavioral Training Institute, LLC (NTI) and is being utilized throughout the NR system and is based on the following beliefs:
-Enhanced program engagement and better outcomes will be achieved through a therapeutic relationship between staff and individuals.
-Enhanced job engagement and better job satisfaction will be achieved through a constant supportive mentorship relationship between staff and leadership.
The QBISP program uses three building blocks:
-The 21 lessons for developing and maintaining therapeutic rapport
-The five steps for repairing therapeutic rapport
-A mentor’s guide for using the 21 lessons and five steps on-site to assist staff to think and act therapeutically “when their buttons have been pushed”
QBISP Education:
Beginning in January 2021, NR of Florida took the initiative to include the QBISP Provider Course in the new hire orientation
program. Additionally, all current employees must pass one or more QBISP courses. NR commissioned NTI to offer several
Train-the-Trainer workshops and a Dissemination workshop to meet this demand. As a result:
-92.3% of direct care staff have passed the QBISP Provider Course.
-65% of Program Managers (residential leadership staff) are QBISP trainers.
-100% of senior management (executive director, area director, state director, and program directors) have completed the “QTIPS” QBISP summary course.
QBISP Mentorship and Culture:
Since QBISP promotes “Education with Mentorship to Enhance Care,” Florida has partnered with NTI to embrace the QBISP
program’s mentorship component fully. To this end, a clinical operations project is being developed to train supervisory staff on the principles and skills of QBISP mentorship. Each Florida program will be supported by a senior-level “Mentor Coach” who will implement competency-based procedures designed to train supervisory and senior staff (residential and clinical) in mentorship skills. These mentorship trainings aim to create a “QBISP Culture” that promotes enhanced supportive relationships between supervisors and staff as well as staff and program individuals. The project is currently being applied in two Florida locations, and other sites will be added sequentially.
We look forward to providing periodic updates as the project progresses.