DISCUSSION NOTES
Sampling: Start with the 80% of approved facilities from I-SATS
Stratification – WF Level
- Stratification Part time
- Salary / Wage
- Contractor
Stratification – Organization level
- Agencies targeting
- Specific populations
- Funding sources
Factors to consider
- Level of analysis
- How representative
- Precision
Ideas
2 – Tier Survey
A. Directors Survey
B. Staff Survey
Examine state/regional unit of analysis method of usability
(Preferred buy-in)
What is it that we don’t know, since we do have a lot of information already? ( i.e. data from state licensure board).
There are a lot of structural changes that need to occur and how much information about that can we get from staff surveys?
Looking at the questions we outlined today, what information already exists that we can use to find the answers?
Do we know who else is already asking the questions?
- Scan what is “out there”
Can we collaborate with the Department of Labor?
How does the Dept. of Labor collect their data? -- Have a conversation with the Dept. of Labor.
Over the next 2 years, what is it that each ATTC can be doing to prepare for this effort?
What is the role of the ATTC Network to move forward? Find out which states have registries/rosters & what information is available on these & in what format?
Marketing – get buy in.
Look at electronic databases.
Need to start thinking about capacity of ATTC Regional Center’s to collect the data
Publicity
Look at scheduled publicity (SAAS, ATTC, NASADAD)
“Pump up “ the workforce – get them excited
How can we assist in developing a timeline?
Who are we targeting?
-Program Directors
-Front line staff
Are these linked or not?
Are we targeting clinical supervisors or are we asking questions about clinical supervision?
Can we treat the clinical supervisor survey as a separate research effort?
Smaller sample
ROSC with peer based providers
Develop strong criteria and definitions in terms of who we are surveying and why.
Type of Treatment provided and number of clients served.
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Strata
What we need to understand in laying out our sampling criteria.
- Are we linking providers to programs or not? If we don’t, then we are still giving disproportionate weight to bigger programs.
- Are there ways to account for that? Do we oversample?
- What do we want to generalize the results to?
- Point of entry to access the WF=NSSATS, but unit of analysis is the state or region.
- What Stratification ? -- Rural, urban; full time/part-time; salaried; languages; agencies targeting specific populations; funding sources
- Can we ask the directors to address the universe of people working in their organizations?
- Do a more focused survey of counselors,
o And then leave it to later research project to survey others delivering services.
- Going back to the big picture, what is it that we really need to know?
o Who is delivering services?
o In what situation are they doing it?
- What does the literature say about response rate? What is acceptable? (NASW/APA). Give equal opportunity to all to reduce biases. Need the response rate to be high enough.
The “So What” question
- Identify directors – which ones will survey (which director in an organization?)
- There’s a resource issue.
- Follow – up with directors vs. focus groups.
- Is this a facility survey?
- We need to be clear about our research questions.
- We need to define and clarify terms
- This approach would help us define the workforce more clearly and it would yield more reliable data than we currently have.
- Could we use the standard directors survey we already have?
- Suggestion – use only those facilities getting block grant dollars.
- May be more difficult in some regions than others to do focus groups.
- Suggestion - piggy back focus groups on trainings.
- Suggestion – Do a facility survey – similar to N-SSATS – instead of a directors survey.
- You can highlight a small set of questions that you really want directors (not their AA’s) to answer
- You can include a pdf to download so that support staff can help fill it out.
- If you want to know more about the workforce, you need to know more about the context in which they work.
- View our survey as a compliment to N-SSATs – can we even send it out in tandem?
- Need to define the service “categories” that the workforce falls into – who are the workers? – This is a key question.
- Do we even know who to give the questionnaires to?
- Phone interviews instead of focus groups?
- Phone interviews of clinical supervisors?
- Identify key informants among clinical supervisors in the regions
- Audience for Reports: CSAT and ATTC Network
WORKFORCE SURVEY GOALS
To gather relevant data to support the development of effective workforce policies and strategies to assure the availability of adequate numbers of providers prepared to respond to the growing needs of individuals, families and communities in need of treatment and recovery services.
WHO WILL WE SURVEY?
*Directors
*Providers – anyone providing frontline treatment services
From SAMHSA’s Treatment Locator
Research Questions
1) What are the demographics of the workforce?
2) What are the anticipated workforce development needs for 2010-2015?
3) What are the common strategies and methodologies to prepare retain and maintain the workforce?
Suggestion: National Registry
- Have a registration portal and develop a national registry of people providing treatment services
- Must give e-mail address
- This would be a “National workforce and training registry”. It would have the capacity to deliver as well as obtain information.
- Question - Would technical skills & access get in the way?
- Suggestion: do some prep work to see if the strategy would work in a small state.
- What would be the incentive for people to register? Free trip, Free training, Free conference attendance, Fee CEUs. Other Incentives – Raffle for Walmart, Starbucks, Amazon.com
- Is this feasible?
- Defining the WF – broad perspective everyone except support staff- easier to say who is excluded.
- Controls – None
- Randomly select staff because unsure how to stratify on unknowns
- Doing survey electronically allows you to increase sample size.
- Surveying electronically also presents issues:
-time at work
-smaller clinics –anonymity issues disincentives – hassle
- Paper & pencil
Costs?
How long to wait for a non-internet response –Mail out?
- Could do directors survey online w/o too much trouble
- What response rate is going to be “good enough” given our limited funding?
- What response rates did NASW and others get?
2 PHASES
*1st Registry to get a handle on who is out there
*2nd move to training and workforce development needs
*What does literature say response rate? (NASW, APA, etc)
*Give equal opportunity to all to lower biases
*What response rate will field take seriously? Needs to be high enough.
National Registry
- Whose role is it to create this?
Suggestion:
Make this project smaller and tighter so that we can confidently answer some definitive questions
National Registry
Beyond scope of this project – could be a recommendation that comes out of this.
If we don’t do a national registry, then who we want to do a workforce survey a few years from now we will still be in the same situation.
Could we add a few questions to N-SSATS that would address our concerns?
-OMB concerns
-Is there a different way to piggy back on N-SSAT?
We the ATTC, need to become much more familiar with the N-SSATS data.
Sampling Frame – 80% of approved facilities
Day Two:
Thrust – Directors Survey, which would include questions addressing the universe of people providing frontline treatment and recovery services.
- This would be a Directors survey informed by focus groups of people providing said services.
- It would include some items that would inform further studies of the providers (w/more resources)
- Selection/composition of focus groups & how many per region.
- Where to do focus groups?
Summer Institutes
NAADAC
SAAS
- 3 part study consisting of:
1. Review/use what is already available
Department of Labor
Annapolis Coalition
2. Focus Groups/Clinical Supervisor Interviews
3. Directors/Facilities survey to compliment N-SSATS
WORKFORCE
§ How are we going to find out who the workforce is (from directors?)
§ How will we define the workforce for this survey (preference = All people providing face-to-face services)
§ Stratification among workforce?
§ How many?
§ Response rates?