Many of our CPI Instructors have interesting stories and impressive accomplishments to share. Recently, we heard that one of our Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® Certified Instructors, Gary McDaniel, was chosen by the National Association of Social Workers as the state of West Virginia's Social Worker of the Year.
Gary, who has been a Certified Instructor for two years, was recently interviewed for our Instructor Forum newsletter, a quarterly publication for CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® Certified Instructors. I think it is an interesting article so I want to share it with you. You can read the interview in its entirety below.
Congratulations, Gary!
CPI Instructor Honored as WV Social Worker of the Year
When CPI learned that Gary McDaniel, a Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® Certified Instructor, was chosen by the National Association of Social Workers as the state of West Virginia's Social Worker of the Year, we called to congratulate him on his award. In the process, we found a determined and compassionate person who has dedicated his life to helping children in his school district. Inspired by Gary's enthusiasm and excitement as well as his innovative programs, we decided that others could benefit from hearing his story.
Congratulations on being selected West Virginia's Social Worker of the Year by the National Association of Social Workers. This is quite an honor. How did your nomination come about?
I suppose you could say it was a community effort. One of my colleagues, Joyce Ott, principal of Warm Springs Intermediate School, nominated me. Several other schools here in Morgan County wrote letters of support and our local newspaper, The Morgan Messenger, provided articles I've appeared in over the last few years to document my involvement in school and community activities.
Can you tell us a little bit about what this award means to you?
I'm deeply honored that my colleagues in the education field saw fit to nominate me and equally honored that my social work colleagues chose me from what I'm told was a large and well-qualified pool of nominees. I'm also grateful to be part of a community that works together in a way that allows us to implement the kind of innovative programming that captured the nomination committees' interest.
One reason for your nomination was your work in creating a Flexible Learning environment in schools. Can you tell us a little bit about that program?
The Flexible Learning environment is a program that Ginnie Molnar, assistant principal of Widmyer Elementary School, and I designed in response to our superintendent's concern about children who were disruptive to the point of being on homebound education. He wanted a way to include students in the regular school day while allowing their time and their classmates' time to be successful, as well as allow their teachers' time to teach. The Flex program does that by giving emotionally disturbed students a safe place and the support of a person to help them regain emotional control, return to academic work, and help push them back into the regular classroom. We have kids in the program that were out of school most of last year who are back in the classroom 100 percent of the time this year. It's a low-tech common sense approach that works. We're very proud of that program and we're moving it to a second school next year.
You also lead a parent-child academy where kids, parents, and siblings come together to discuss issues that keep students from succeeding. What are some of the pressing issues you have seen and how has this program addressed these issues?
The parent-child academy creates a place for parents and students to learn together from a variety of experts in the fields of nutrition, positive behavior support, discipline, early literacy, family activities, and physical fitness. Because caregivers, students, and siblings are learning together it is a modeling program rather than a strictly didactic program. If they are learning about nutrition, they are also making a healthy snack together and eating it together. That makes it fun and fun makes learning stick. This program now has a full time coordinator and is expanding to two additional schools next year.
What is it that drives you to develop these types of programs?
Necessity is the mother of invention. We are a rural county in a rural state and there are few resources available to us. If we want good things to happen for our kids, we have to make them happen. I was one of those kids who struggled in a variety of ways, and there were people who didn't give up on me. I owe something back, and by the grace of God and the kindness of our community, I'm given the opportunity to help others grow. Hopefully, they will also be in the position to give back some day. What a wonderful world we would live in if everyone gave back a little more than they took.
What do you see as your next steps and ambitions within the school district?
Continuing to develop programs and work with others to implement them with integrity and skill. The more resources and skills others have to help, the more I'll be able to focus on the children and families who need my expertise the most.
You have been a CPI Certified Instructor since 2008. What initially lead you to become certified?
CPI's Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® training is a great program. I've been a Certified Instructor for two years and I've seen its power to prevent problems. I once directed an inpatient adolescent program that went from daily restraint and seclusion episodes to a 14-month period without a single restraint; that was largely due to my insistence on utilizing CPI principles early and often. When I had the opportunity to help our senior trainer Constance Dowrick by becoming a trainer for Morgan County Schools, I jumped at the chance. Constance is now free to focus more on CPI's autism training which is her specialty, and I have the opportunity to teach Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® training to a broader group of professionals.
How have you seen the Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® program integrated at your schools and how has the program impacted your work with students?
Last year, I participated in the training of 52 personnel in our school system. This year the number jumped to 96 and it would have been much higher if we hadn't had two weeks of snow days. Three schools in our system now have CPI support teams in place and two schools have their entire staff trained. Every school in our county has at least a core group of trained individuals, and we routinely rehearse with teams and individuals to help them with the situational application of CPI skills. Next year, we'll have more individuals trained and more teams in place. What's most important to me is that students who used to require physical interventions are now managed without anyone having to lay a hand on them. There are times when Nonviolent Physical Crisis InterventionSM skills have to be used, but it's not very often. Most crises are handled verbally before they escalate to the point of posing a danger and have to be managed physically. The greatest gift to our system from CPI has been the ability of our staff and faculty to now differentiate between anxiety and defensiveness and to know how to respond to each in the most effective manner. When we support the anxious student and direct the defensive student most of our problems are managed before they have a chance to escalate.
Are you a Certified Instructor with an achievement or experience to share? We'd love to hear from you! Feel free to post your thoughts in the Comments section below or email your story to instructor@crisisprevention.com.