IARP DM News - 2004
IARP DISABILITY MANAGEMENT NEWS by Ed Steffan
On August 2, 2004, I was asked to replace Jerry Olsheski as your Disability Management Section Chair. I was very pleased to accept this responsibility and to represent our section at my first telephonic National Board Meeting on August 5, 2004.
After accepting the responsibility of being your Section Chair, I learned the deadline for this article was Saturday, August 7, 2004, so this will be brief and too the point. By way of introduction, I am providing my Candidate Statement as previously forwarded.
Candidate Statement: "My desire to service and increase my involvement and commitment to IARP stems from positive experiences I've had and observed within IARP. Those of you who have met me experienced the high energy level and proactive problem solving approach I bring to my responsibilities. Those of you I hope to meet will quickly learn I am deeply committed to fostering growth for our profession.
In my 22 years providing services for individuals, administering D.M. programs and identifying potential settings to perform services, I've learned the importance of sharing information and promoting rehabilitation as a whole. If you allow me to serve you, I will work tirelessly to accomplish the goals identified in our strategic plan, and those we develop. My goal is to increase our interaction with affiliated associations and our National Board, increase access to online and teleconference training while acquiring reasonably priced CEU's because, the future of disability management is ours for the making."
As noted in my Candidate Statement, I would like to activate and energize our section through teleconference educational seminars, as well as increasing the value and utilization of our List Serve to identify how best we can move forward and develop a short and long term strategic plan.
I will be asking Ms. Diane Simmons-Grab, our highly efficient conference planner, to identify time slots at the November Forensic Conference in San Antonio, Texas and our 2005 National Conference in Orlando, Florida for us to interact, identify our training needs and develop a game plan for increasing the benefits we receive as members of the Disability Management Section.
I feel it is important for me to develop a sense of what our needs are and to start that process, I would like to ask all of you to either e-mail me your answers to the following questions at epsrehab@ameritech.net or utilize the List Serve, where I have also posted this information, to provide your responses.
1) As a benefit, what is most important to you from joining the Disability Management Section?
2) What educational topics would you like addressed at our upcoming national convention in Orlando?
3) What teleconference educational programming topics would be beneficial to you?
4) How many times have you used the List Serve in the last 12 months, and was it of value to you?
5) If you did not use the List Serve, please indicate why.
6) What improvements should we pursue implementing for our List Serve?
7) Are you willing to volunteer your time to assist us in developing the List Serve, educational training programs, or any other way?
I look forward to working together with all of you who are willing to participate in energizing our section so we can share information and develop increasingly higher standards of service, improve our skills and promote quality rehabilitation services and networking to expand our business opportunities. Together, let's shape the future of our Disability Management Section.
