Effects of a Systems-Level Intervention to Improve Trainer Integrity in a Behavioral Healthcare Organization

OBJECTIVES: Direct support professionals (DSPs) play a critical role in health-related outcomes for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) who reside in congregate living settings. Large behavioral healthcare organizations often rely on staff to function as peer trainers for newly hired DSPs. Organizations should adopt empirically supported training techniques to prepare peer trainers for their role and develop systems to ensure ongoing integrity of the training system. The purpose of this program description is to summarize consultation activities that attempted to create these systems. METHODS: Staff members were trained to function as peer trainers, an assessment was conducted to determine the barriers to training in the natural environment, and a systems-level intervention informed by the assessment was implemented to improve peer trainer integrity. RESULTS: The assessment revealed peer trainers were often unaware when they were expected to train and did not receive feedback or programmed consequences for training newly hired DSPs. A systems-level intervention containing a prompt (reminder) about upcoming training and feedback plus a monetary incentive produced improvements in trainer integrity. CONCLUSIONS: A systems-level intervention based on an assessment can improve peer trainer integrity. Ensuring peer trainer integrity increases the likelihood that newly hired DSPs will implement health-related protocols with individuals with IDD.