Success Stories/Testimonials

Mental Health Care | Education | Human Services | Health Care | Youth & Juvenile Services | Long Term Care

Mental Health Care

St. Charles Mercy Hospital, Oregon, OH
“Through the initiative (Nonviolent Crisis Intervention^® training) a number of improvements were accomplished, including a documented ongoing annual reduction of both the episodes and total time of seclusion and restraint, a documented reduction in violence-related incidents from over 5% of total admissions in 2002 to 1.9% of total admissions in 2006, consistently high levels of patient satisfaction, and improved compliance with internal departmental seclusion and restraint protocols.”

Randall LaFond
Regional Director of Psychiatric and Behavior Service

Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services, Grand Rapids, MI
 “Staff on the C&A unit have now reported a realization that the goal is to significantly reduce the use of seclusion and restraint, and that they have the confidence that it can be done. They have witnessed the effectiveness of using a variety of tools prior to using seclusion and restraint. By offering more choices and placing greater emphasis on being proactive, staff have seen the advantage of involving the patients in directing the course of their treatment. Patients do not ‘rule the unit’ in a negative way, but they have been empowered to become more directive of their own care. The C&A unit became a safer place with 37% fewer injuries than the previous quarter. Staff members also report having more time available during their shifts to spend with patients in positive, therapeutic interactions.”

Linda Witte
Staff Educator for Hospital Based Services

South Jersey Healthcare’s Mental Health Services, Bridgeton, NJ
“In 2006, patients were restrained 63 seconds (1.04 minute) for every care day provided. In 2007, following CPI training, this number dropped to 33 seconds. In 2008, following the code team initiative, the restraint utilization dropped to 26 seconds. This represents a 60-percent drop in restraint utilization.”

Dave Moore
Director of Mental Health Services

Kings View Telepsychiatry, Fresno, California
“I am particularly pleased because, as a psychiatrist, I know that many in my profession view medications as the singular vehicle toward behavior management. I can assure you that the average number of medications that clients were on has decreased tremendously since the team has implemented Nonviolent Crisis Intervention^® training.”

Riverview Hospital, Port Coquitlam, British Columbia
“There has been a continuous improvement in the management of violence prevention at our hospital over the past eight years. There was a 49% decrease in the number of incidents per 100 beds and a 64% decrease in the number of time loss incidents per 100 beds. Important factors that have contributed to the improvement include the necessity of ongoing and up-to-date Nonviolent Crisis Intervention^® training.”

Transitional Learning Center, Galveston, TX
“We hypothesized that staff would demonstrate decreased discomfort with behaviors addressed by the program, primarily those behaviors involving verbal and physical aggression. This hypothesis was supported by the data. A significant decrease in discomfort was observed immediately following training.”

“The finding of positive attitude change in regard to staff/staff interactions was somewhat unexpected, given that these situations are not directly addressed in training. However, the verbal skills taught can generalize to a variety of contentious interpersonal interactions.”

Richard Temple, Dennis Zgaljardic, Sybil Yancy, & Shawn Jaffray
As Cited in Rehabilitation Psychology 52(4), 429-434

Fredricksburg Center for Mental Illness and Recovery, Fredricksburg, VA
“After attending Nonviolent Crisis Intervention^® training, staff feel comfortable because they know what to expect. They know what their co-worker is going to do. It’s just a whole different ballgame when they are trained.”

Beverly Stone
Nurse Manager

Riverview Hospital, Port Coquitlam, BC
“CPI’s Nonviolent Crisis Intervention^® training program fits into the bigger picture at our hospital. It fits with our program manager matrix model, psychosocial rehabilitation, which puts the patient front and center, and fits in with our charter patients’ rights.”

Kathy Finch
Clinical Instructor

South Nassau Communities Hospital, Oceanside, New York
“Since the inception of the CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention^® training, our behavioral health unit has seen a significant drop in staff injuries through implementation of these skills. Staff take pride in knowing that the Care, Welfare, Safety, and Security^SM philosophy they practice while utilizing preventive techniques is effective.”

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Education

Academy School District 20, Colorado Springs, CO
“We as a district embrace the philosophy that CPI promotes. Since implementing the program and training our staff members, we have seen fewer physical interventions across the district. Our staff members are more aware of early interventions and have been equipped with the ability to intervene earlier.”

Theresa Maez
Transition Community Coach

Central Corporate Services Unit, Queensland, Australia
“The decision to pilot this type of intervention was supported by the comparison of WorkCover claims between a school that had been using Nonviolent Crisis Intervention^® and schools that had no such intervention in place. Although a number of claims were still evident at the school using the intervention, they resulted in reduced injuries and associated costs, little lost time and no claims for residual psychological distress.”

“The principal reported that there was a significant reduction in incidents and an improvement in students’ behaviour. This was attributed to the following factors:

• The training included identifying and managing the triggers that lead to undesirable behaviour

• Participants learnt safe techniques to restrain students if required thus reducing the risk of sprain and strain injuries

• Students being restrained in a manner that is seen as positive and aims to maintain the student’s dignity

• The training provides staff with a course of action enabling them to take control and reduce feelings of anxiety and psychological distress.”

Education Queensland Case Study
As cited in Organisational Health Unit – June 2004

Orange County Public Schools, Orange County, FL
“First and foremost, we now place more emphasis on the redirection and setting limits portion of the training. We are finding that those two skills are very difficult for adults to learn. Participants now take part in frequent role-plays which require them to either redirect or set limits. Scripts have been written to assist participants during their initial role-play attempts. It is amazing to watch the ‘light come on’ as participants gain more confidence in their ability to use the skills being taught.”

Rachel Noonan
Instructional Support Teacher

School of the Osage, Lake Ozark, MO
“The most frequent response we hear over and over is, ‘This is the best training I’ve ever had. Why has no one taught me this before?’”

Susan Bowden
Director of Special Services

Lafayette Parish Schools, Louisiana
“This training was a wonderful opportunity to implement a plan to effectively assist students when an escalation occurs at our school. We have a plan in place at our school to call for “team” members when the need arises. The plan has given us the confidence and success to safely handle and assist our students in a personal crisis situation. This program has assisted me in a variety of ways. It has taught me techniques that I have used with children. I love the fact that we can de-escalate a problem and no further intervention is needed. Because of Nonviolent Crisis Intervention^® training, I can attest that no children we have worked with have been injured.”

White Tanks Learning Center, Buckeye, Arizona
“Another way that the implementation of training has helped our staff is that it creates a way of giving constructive feedback in a non emotional way. In the past, staff were hesitant to discuss interventions with each other. There was no structure with which to initiate a discussion. Now, we can refer to the training and discuss whether or not our behavior was within its guidelines.”

Lubbock Independent School District, Lubbock, Texas
“Our district has seen a great reduction in the need to restrain as our skills in verbal de-escalation have improved. The training has provided us with a common language, which allows us to function better as a team. Our teams have learned to encourage and support both students and one another. The training has also increased our awareness of the importance of having a plan and working that plan. We have found that relationships with students have improved as we have sharpened our skills.”

Washington School for the Deaf, Vancouver, WA
“CPI’s Nonviolent Crisis Intervention^® techniques work well. The verbal interventions are great. We needed something and this is the best that I have found.”

Nancy Sinkovitz
Dean

Lenawee Intermediate Schools, Adrian, MI
“When educators take the class, they feel validated because CPI’s Nonviolent Crisis Intervention^® training fits so well with educational goals. Schools are safer when you can control acting-out behavior.”

Linda Emerson

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Human Services

Chileda, LaCrosse, WI
“Chileda has not only found success in addressing the challenging behaviors of individuals with ASD, but has done so while decreasing reliance on the use of restraint and seclusion. Since 2001, Chileda has reduced the use of restraint by 95% and the use of seclusion by 86%. Moreover, these goals were accomplished with a statistically significant reduction in rates of staff injury. Most importantly, Chileda has not increased reliance on the use of psychotropic medications.”

Shari Carlson
Director of Behavior Services

Department of Family Services, Province of Manitoba
“CPI’s Verbal Escalation Continuum^SM is probably one of the most important aspects of their program in terms of providing people with a real understanding about what can go on as a crisis elevates.”

Dr. Larry Hardy
Senior Psychologist

California Vocations, Inc., Paradise, California
“The level of hands-on intervention throughout our company is now minimal. We are building relationships of respect and trust rather than power and control. We have less staff injuries that are a direct result of staff interventions. Success is now measured by the least amount of physical intervention needed, rather than how quickly a crisis situation is resolved.”

Lutheran Social Services, Minnesota
“Since we began our CPI training, we have only had one restraint within our many shelters and group homes. We were recently re-accredited by COA (Council on Accreditation) and when one reviewer asked for a report on a recent physical restraint, we had to do some digging to find one. The CPI program has been invaluable to our programs, staff, and clients. This has truly come through in the day-to-day services that we provide for at-risk youth and their families.”

Sioux Falls Vocational Services, South Dakota
“In the past year, we have seen a 50% decrease in the number of peer-to-peer incidents. We have identified several contributing factors to this decrease, with a major one being the implementation of staff training on CPI techniques. Staff are better able to identify people’s signs of anxiety and defensiveness and can implement supportive approaches prior to people becoming violent toward themselves, staff, and others served.”

Winning Wheels, Prophetown, Illinois
“One of the greatest contributions has been an awareness of the ‘Integrated Experience’ and a greater sense of influence we can have on each other, for better or worse. Also, having more staff with the skills and training to identify and head off potential problems has made our facility a better place to work and live. This has been evidenced by fewer incidents in our facility and a lessening of the overall severity of incidents.”

Road to Responsibility, Marshfield, Massachusetts
“Over the past five years or so, as we have realized the importance of training as a process and integrated CPI’s philosophy into our other trainings, staff have often contacted us regarding everything from the proper tone of voice to use when making a request of someone to requests for specific trainings or refreshers. We have seen an increase in the reporting of minor incidents as a result of increased awareness of human rights issues and more in-depth training.”

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Health Care

Cedar-Sinai Health System, Los Angeles, CA
“The S&R team retrained all patient care providers (not just nurses) and started to aggressively analyze and scrutinize every event. With this new training and “microscope approach,” two significant trends evolved over time. One, staff learned how to recognize an escalating event earlier, which would allow them to intervene earlier. Second, staff were collaboratively working together to come up with less restrictive alternatives to seclusion and restraint.”

Linda Burnes Bolton & Anne Goodenough
As Cited in Nursing Administration Quarterly 27(4), 344-354

Glendale Adventist Medical Center, Glendale, CA
“Nurses have told us the training has given them more confidence and that they feel proud of the way they were able to handle situations that may have intimidated them in the past. We’ve received fewer incident reports than we did three years ago, and our staff know they have a strong support system in dealing with potentially violent situations.”

John Adam, RN
As Cited in Nurseweek, Oct. 2, 2007

Munson Medical Center, Traverse City, Michigan
“Staff training has provided the knowledge needed to de-escalate/call for help when a situation warrants it. Staff feel very comfortable in their teams and to date, we have no recorded lost time, worker’s comp, or deaths related to these types of situations.”

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Youth & Juvenile Services

Boys Town Specialized Treatment Group Homes
The Boys Town Specialized Treatment Group Homes serve troubled youth, ages 10–18, whose treatment was unsuccessful at lower levels of care.

“Not only have safety holds reduced in overall number of events over the past three years, but the improved form, improved staff development and education, and the intervention of a program audit have all contributed to reducing the hold interventions and therefore reducing the risk of youth and staff injuries.”

Liz Coffey
Trainer

Teaching-Family Homes of Upper Michigan
Teaching-Family Homes of Upper Michigan provides treatment, foster care, residential programs, education and counseling, and juvenile justice diversion reintegration alternatives to children and families in need. The facility implemented the Nonviolent Crisis Intervention^® training program as part of an extensive pre-service training process. The annual rate of incidents involving the use of physical restraint in the two years after implementation, in comparison to the average in the two years prior to implementation, dropped from 250 incidents to 127.

“Implementation of the Nonviolent Crisis Intervention^® training techniques into pre-service training and on an ongoing basis has greatly reduced the number of restraints performed throughout the agency. The program’s focus on verbal de-escalation and using physical intervention as a last resort has improved employee’s outlook and philosophy on the use of restraint.”

Mike Smith
Facility Manager

Baptist Children’s Home and Family Services, Carmi, IL
“CPI’s Nonviolent Crisis Intervention^® program is one of the few training programs I found that actually delivers what it promises.”

Doug Devore
Director

St. Louis County Family Court, Missouri
“The Detention Center is working to establish an environment where residents can learn from their mistakes. Staff members are encouraged to engage residents in this process. CPI helps build these communication skills and provide an environment that fosters trust. It teaches a team approach, which aids in preventing injuries and further legal issues. Our physical interventions have dropped drastically since CPI training has been instituted into the organization.”

Training and QCI, Circle of Care, Tahlequah, Oklahoma
“The most consistent trend that has emerged is that the children are better cared for in the early stages of crisis. Staff are more aware of the early stages and ways to intervene before the child gets out of control. Therefore, we have fewer verbal attacks. We have reduced the number of verbal altercations and decreased the severity of these verbal outbursts because our staff understand the importance of early and effective intervention.”

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Long Term Care

Shalom Village Nursing Home, Hamilton, ON
“Analysis of qualitative data (focus groups and participant observation field notes) suggests an organizational culture of tolerance and respect for residents who display physical behaviors. The formal training program did much to relieve concerns about handling residents in ways feared to be inappropriate and unsafe. Training also gave staff new skills that made them feel more prepared to handle physical displays, while at the same time affirming the importance of good verbal communication skills.”

Lori Schindel-Martin, et al
As Cited in American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias 18 (5), 273-281

Department of Solicitor General, Nova Scotia, Canada
“Since the course, we’ve had several staff comment that they have noticed a significant drop in the number of confrontations.”

Wayne Maxwell
Coordinator of Staff Training Development

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