Kate Anthony

OTI Europe Ltd | Consultancy, Personal Training and Research for Online Therapeutic Services

   

Ordering Training À La Carte

by

I’ve been having a think about how clients need varying levels of support in their lives at different times, and how online services can meet those needs.  Sometimes a forum with no interaction by the client is enough – they can learn from previous posts about how others coped in challenging times. Sometimes, the need steps up to receive communication from another human being about an issue, and this can be done through anonymous support forums or chat rooms. Perhaps an ongoing relationship would be helpful, and a less anonymous contract for therapeutic help would be useful from a trained counsellor or psychotherapist. Perhaps that contract can in turn be stepped up to include face-to-face sessions in-room as part of a blended care package.

In short – the levels of support and contact a person needs is a fluid thing!  So why not also apply this to training?ID-100207606

At the Online Therapy Institute, we pride ourselves on our attitude to training being a personal thing.  Each of our students gets one-to-one mentoring from myself or DeeAnna, depending on what the student wants or needs to learn about (and our training catalogue is extensive and diverse!). We build a personal relationship with each student to ensure their training needs are fully met, and we have found this to be the most enjoyable process in continuing professional development for both parties. Our training model lies in the training relationship being as central to the process as the therapeutic relationship will be to their future client base.  The key to learning is in the writing, and the essence of the learning being valuable comes from the personal mentoring that reflects and builds that learning into a living breathing part of a person’s professional identity.

Our Certified Cyber Facilitator and PGCert trainings are the gold standard of what we do, where students build relationships with us as expert trainers to meet professional needs on their journey to being an online practitioner. A more cost-considerate route is our streamlined versions of this, for example our Certified Cyber Therapist credential where you still get the mentoring relationship with me but at a faster pace!  And to make sure that our students feel happy with the chosen route, costs of any introductory courses are fully met if the student chooses to go on to the gold standard route.

But you know what? Just as sometimes a potential client will only need to surf anonymous forums or blogs for help with their mental health, sometimes a potential trainee just needs some building blocks to discover how much training they need or can afford.  This is why in 2015 I shall be offering my trainings à la carte!  This means you can receive the valuable teaching tools and resources we have developed over the years, but without the one-to-one mentoring.  You can always come back for more at no additional cost, and still get a certificate for CPD validation! It’s a win-win!

DeeAnna already offers this training model for our Certified Intuitive Practitioner course over at the Online AromaTherapy Institute if you want to see it in action – or drop me a comment below for updates in 2015!

🙂

[Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net]

On Being A Columnist

by

I’ve been thinking about both my contributors to TILT Magazine and my own role as a columnist recently.  This was inspired by the departure of my good colleague Anne Stokes over at TILT Towers, who has been with us from the inaugural issue right up to the present day – that’s 20 columns submitted for our readers pleasure and education (or, to look at it differently, nearly a whopping 20,000 words!).  Anne’s topic was CyberSupervision, and I doubt we could have found a better UK expert to offer her words of wisdom (not to mention her being a pleasure to work with and her ability to meet deadlines like no other author I have come across in my time as Editor!).

Anne is handing her baton to another of our dear colleagues after the Winter 2014 issue of TILT to Cedric Speyer, another fine example of a CyberSupervisor we are very lucky to have on board, and perhaps with a very different style and passion – so while I am sad to say farewell to Anne, I’m also excited to welcome Cedric.

Our columnists receive no financial gain from their contributions, and nor have I over my years contributing regular columns for other editors.  I do try to be a regular columnist for only one publication at a time because of this (otherwise I can’t afford to feed the cat), but what is it about contributing our expertise to a wider audience that keeps us doing it for free?

Here are some thoughts:

We reach new audiencesCAW

My current regular column is with the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy’s Workplace Division ( download it now! 13559_cyberwork CAW Autumn 2014). Not only does my work on Cyberculture and the impact of online services reach a new audience by doing this, I reach people who actively pay for a subscription and so are invested in reading the Journal.  Sure, they may skip over my part in it, but I am sure that the topic will surface in some part of their work one day and cause them to think “oh! I can find out more about this can’t I? – my journal covers it in every edition!”  I also receive a .pdf for my own distribution, as do all our columnists in TILT.

We receive new areas in which to market

Every columnist with a good editor will have a chance to provide the context in which they work in return for their wise words.  My by-line contains details of who I am, what I offer (and where), and how to get hold of me.  Readers of the journal are those involved in or contributing to the emotional and psychological health of people in organisations, including workplace counsellors, trainers, team leaders and welfare staff, occupational psychologists, HR managers and those with an interest in employee counselling services and skills.  How else could I each these people without investing in financial ways of marketing? And if your column makes it to the online version of the journal – as mine does – then that’s a whole new way of increasing your SEO!

We add to our publication lists

We all have a Curriculum Vitae or Résumé to maintain and our columns do just that.  Keep your links fresh from your up-to-date list of publications online and you have a handy resource to disseminate your work without resorting to a scanner or – dare I say it – a photocopier (that is SO 2008!).

Finally – you keep the Editors of the world very happy!

Really you do!  My role as co-Managing Editor of TILT Magazine is a labour of love, for all the reasons I outlined in an earlier post – and my regular columnists make my job 100 times better just by being willing and able to contribute with a cheery email when sending their work.   I am terrible with deadlines, and yet I rarely hear a peep of complaint about that!  So thank you to you all – past, present and future – for keeping me and my readers happier in our work!

🙂

CyberSupervision – Updates and Revamps (or what the inside of my head looks like!)

by

One of the things that DeeAnna and I joke about being at the top of our technology development wish list is a USB adapter for our brains.  When we plan a course – from one of our smaller special interest modules right up to our 60-hour Specialist Certificates – one of us generally has the entire basic structure and content in our head right from the start.

Of course, then we have to extract that course from our brains and into our training platform, JigsawBox, before we can offer it to our students!  And one of the beauties of the platform is that we can edit the course once finished, meaning that the moment a new resource or updated information about any aspect of the content turns up, we can add it or amend the course within seconds – ensuring that our students only get the most up-to-date information available.  Any course that involves the use of technology needs to have that functionality – the days of emailing out handouts and lessons are long gone.

I’ve just completed the overhaul of our Online Supervision Specialist Certificate: checking links; replacing out of date articles; adding new videos; designing new written assignments… the list of blended technologies we employ in our courses reflect the Online Therapy Institute ethos of blending technologies to better meet the needs of the clients we serve.  Along the way, I’ve restructured the 30 hours to flow better from the introductory definitions, through the ethical considerations, on to the clinical aspects of supervising online, and ending at advanced readings encompassing private practice, internships, one-off supervision models and using avatars in virtual worlds as part of a supervision service.

Sometimes when finishing up a course, I wonder how it got from the inside of my head to the training platform.  And then I realise I am generally staring at one sheet of A4 that shows me.  Look!

DSC_0107

What a mess, huh?  And yet every scribble on that one piece of paper (and I only EVER need one piece of paper) links to everything else in my head around that specific topic, from random thoughts to newspaper articles to online jokes to the academic papers that Google Scholar throws at me every morning.

Sometimes the human brain just stuns me. As Einstein said, “Computers are incredibly fast, accurate and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination.”  Of course, he also said that technology has exceeded our humanity, but that’s a point I disagree with anyway 😉

I love technology.  That’s not a secret.  I also love my profession. Slamming those two things together in a coherent and ethically delivered way – not only educating others to advance confidently into the CyberCulture we now live and work in but also mentoring the innovators of the future to ensure the helping professions remain current and relevant in society – is my life’s work.

And if all you need is a pen and a sheet of paper like I often do, with no plug socket or wire in sight, remember that you are still using technology.  Douglas Adams taught me to think that way about chairs back in 1999. And in my world, you don’t get a better teacher than him.

🙂

Kickstart TILT on the rest of the journey!

by

tilt-mags

A few weeks ago, I blogged about how TILT is put together, and how DeeAnna and I complement each other as co-Managing Editors in producing such an accessible and visually pleasing magazine.  “Pride and joy” is a phrase we use a lot in relation to it, but another one we use is “labour of love”!

When we first discussed the possibility of creating a publication of benefit to those not only in our field of working online professionally, but also to those approaching the idea of fitting technology into practice, we talked at length about a journal.  We even had a name for it, JOT, the Journal of Online Therapy.  We approached publishers, wrote proposals, started seeking an Editorial Board and started making lists of potential peer reviewers.  In short, we started by going down the academic road to getting information about technology in our work to the field of counselling and therapy.

Why didn’t we continue down that road?

Well, firstly we knew that the work we do, and the work our colleagues worldwide do, need not be straight-jacketed into the phrase “therapy” in its traditional sense. We wanted a publication that spoke to other members of the helping profession – the coaches, the alternative practitioners, the befrienders and peer-supporters (to name but a few).  Essentially, we wanted to reach an audience that encompassed every type of change-agent using technology – and I include the client in that group as self-facilitator of their improved mental health.

Secondly, it became clear that journals need to make money to attract publishers. Making money from professional journals involves a large financial commitment by readers, and how could we square that with reaching as many people as possible to educate and entertain them about online work?  We needed a platform where we could offer the magazine free to our students, free generally for archived issues, and at minimal cost to everybody else for the current issue.

Finally, we wanted a publication that could keep readers as up-to-date on developments in the field as possible, and this meant that we had to trust our own skills and judgement in what we let get through the editorial process to the page.  I contribute articles to journals, I peer-review papers (sometimes three times over), and I work with editors all over the world. I know what a long process that can be first hand (and applaud those who stick with it!).

But here’s the bottom line – TILT costs money to produce to meet those three targets above: wide audience; open access; quick production. Our baby has grown up, and we need help to continue guiding it on the journey to maintaining the reputation it has as a great resource. Our pride and joy is also a labour of love, and we need to reach out to those who appreciate it now for help to keep it going.

As DeeAnna outlines on her blog – “We have started a Kickstarter campaign to help with the production costs of TILT Magazine, anticipating that as our student body continues to grow, we will not require supplemental monetary aid by 2016.  In the meantime, we pay for the production and distribution of TILT, including graphic layout and the time to edit and compile.”

By contributing to the Kickstarter campaign, you can help us keep TILT on the virtual stands. Please help our Labour of Love remain our Pride and Joy! It can cost as little as 60p, $1, or 70 Eurocents!