The Ohio Human Services Training System (OHSTS) began providing in-service training in 1989 to Ohio’s Adult Protective Services workforce and their private and public partners.
OHSTS is a cooperative effort between the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, Regional Training Centers and Ohio’s University Consortium for Child and Adult Services (OUCCAS). The statewide Steering Committee provides program oversight and governance of the developmental and operational activities necessary for OHSTS to achieve its mission.
The Regional Training Centers coordinate training events in local agencies based on identified learning needs for Adult Protective Services staff. Learning opportunities include both instructor-led training and self-directed courses. The system promotes culturally competent practice and plans deliberate strategies to transfer learning from the classroom to the workplace.
Mission
The Ohio Human Services Training System strengthens best practice in adult protective services through education, skill development, and collaboration with intentional inclusivity and respect for diversity.
Vision
The Ohio Human Services Training System embraces inclusivity and diversity through the development of highly skilled professionals working in adult protective services and partner agencies who promote and support safety and well-being for Ohio’s older adults.
Guiding Principles
Collaboration
- Cultivate partners who share common vision
- Ensure shared management structures
- Seek input from key informants
- Reach for consensus whenever possible
- Implement effective communication and continuous feedback mechanisms
- Foster skillful dialogue
- Focus on the value of relationships
- Engage in networking and connecting across systems
- Coordinate planning efforts
Diversity and Inclusivity
- Recognize diversity beyond race, ethnicity or national origin
- Seek awareness of one’s own diversity
- Communicate openness to exploring diversity with others
- Acknowledge and work through personal biases
- Respect and honor differences
- Seek expert assistance to gain perspective
- Commit to diversity competence as a lifelong process
- Reflect diversity in all products and services
Innovation
- Manage change with deliberate solutions
- Build shared vision
- Encourage progress and minimize disruption
- Advance system improvement
- Persist in the face of setbacks
- Enhance motivation for change
- Market ideas and influence results
- Pilot new approaches
- Incorporate opportunities to practice learning
- Improve efficiency with technology advances
Evidence-Informed Practice
- Use best available evidence in decision-making and development
- Be transparent about evidence
- Understand research findings and how to apply them to practice
- Stay current in areas of expertise
- Recruit individuals with practice experience
- Review and update products regularly
- Develop learning activities grounded in skill sets and competencies
Quality
- Integrate continuous quality improvement systems
- Use data to drive decisions
- Embrace evidence-informed methodologies
- Evaluate critical training outcomes
- Routinely evaluate key program components
- Target highest priority learning needs
- Set performance goals
- Address all levels of learning
- Maximize resources
- Conduct cost-benefit analysis
Responsive to Learners
- Assess learning needs
- Provide specific learning interventions
- Seek understanding of barriers to implementation
- Maintain balance between standardization and individualization
- Respond nimbly and deliberately to changing needs
- Achieve change when required
- Promote timeliness and availability
- Apply learning to relevant tasks and practices
OHSTS Partner Organizations
ODJFS has executive authority over the OHSTS and co-chairs the Statewide Steering Committee.
Ohio’s University Consortium for Child and Adult Services (OUCCAS), the OHSTS’s current State Training Coordinator, facilitates and coordinates all program activities, develops training curricula and other resources, and provides fiscal administration.
Two Regional Training Centers (RTCs) identify and address the training needs of staff and assist in developing, piloting, and evaluating training activities.