| The Heroic Agency Network (HAN) is a list of practitioners and agencies who are experienced using Client Directed Outcome Informed (CDOI) practices. The practitioners and agencies on this list are resources that beginners can use for assistance. By joining this network, you are helping to spread the knowlege of CDOI and agreeing to be a resource for those who are learning about CDOI. |
- Who else is doing Client Directed Outcome Informed (CDOI) work in my city, state, province, or country?
- How did they get started?
- How could I get my agency/school/group on board with the ideas?
- What data might they have that I might access?
- Are there CDOI presentation/training materials available that I could show my agency/school/group that might get them as excited as I am?
- I am already doing CDOI work. Can I be of help for others wanting to get started doing this work?
The CDOI movement is growing. The Heroic Agency Network (HAN) provides an exciting networking opportunity for those practices and organizations that are implementing CDOI ways of working, and encouragement and consultation for those just starting out. By registering your practice, school, or agency, you are given a presence on the web and can highlight your successes with involving clients as partners in the process of change. You can identify yourself as part of the ISTC team as a member of the HAN. As a member, you are free to share any info or files from the ISTC website. Joining HAN If you are already one of those places using CDOI ideas, and would be willing to help those moving in that direction, HAN can use your help to expand this invaluable network of persons, like yourself, who are changing the face of mental health/substance abuse practice. Becoming a member of HAN is a simple 3 step process: - Click the "Yes, I agree" button after reading the Heroic Agency Network Binding Agreement.
- Fill out the application form that you will be directed to after agreeing.
- One of The Heroic Agency Network leaders will contact you to complete the application process.
We can all learn from one another. Many of us have developed special ways of partnering with our clients and involving them as stakeholders in the change process. This is your opportunity to support others while showcasing how your organization is changing mental health business as usual. * A word about the word "Heroic." We first used the word "heroic" as a metaphor in appreciation of forty years of research demonstrating that the client accounts for most of the variance of change. The metaphor sought to challenge the epic story of the heroic therapist high atop a white stallion of expert status and theoretical purity brandishing a sword of evidenced based practice charging to rescue the hapless client from the psychic or biochemical dragons. Eventually the metaphor expanded to include "heroic agencies." Heroic agencies are those that are connected to the expertise or heroism of our clients. When our services are provided without intimate connection to those receiving them, when cases are presented without clients' voices, when the DSM is read without eye contact with the person being described, the client is depersonalized—becomes a cardboard cutout—and is only the object of our professional whims. With this metaphor, we seek to inspire front line workers and administrators to begin a quest to influence their agencies to enter full partnerships with clients at every level in every way—to change the very culture of mental health, to make the client no longer the missing link, but rather a valued partner in not only the way services are delivered, but how they are funded as well. Agencies that take on this quest are indeed courageous and making a bold contribution—absolutely heroic—in the face of much opposition and obstacle. |
