Why Choose EQ2 for Your Direct Care Workers?
Watch this video, or read the transcript below, to learn about Matt’s decision to care for his direct care workers by implementing Lionheart’s EQ2 program.
Matt Price is the Director of Residential Services at NewPath Child & Family Solutions in Cincinnati.
Q: Tell us about the organization you work for.
So I am the director of a residential intervention program here in Cincinnati. We are a 32 bed program. We serve kids as young as age four, up through age 17 and 18, and we are one program part of a larger organization. So we have outpatient services and medical services, day programs, community-based and home-based. Of course, my pride and joy is the residential.
Q: How did you find Lionheart and our programs?
I stumbled upon Lionheart. I’ll say that I went to a conference, and I believe it was in Boston the year that I first learned about Lionheart. I saw some beautiful artwork amongst the display tables, and it caught my eye because not only was the artwork beautiful, it spoke to the clients that we serve. And instantly I thought, this is the kind of work that’s missing in all of these other programs that we implement. There’s nothing that actually looks like the people who we work with. So I went up and I think at that time, I purchased one of the Power Source books. But the next year I went to the conference, I saw Beth present on EQ2, and my mind was blown because again, the beautiful artwork was back, but this time it’s a program for staff. And I feel like Lionheart nailed it with, “this is what has been missing; we have to have a program where we take care of the caretakers.” And I’d never seen anything like it. It incorporated everything that I was trying to do with my program back home in terms of mindfulness and regulation for staff, and I just feel like it really answered a question – it filled a gap that had been missing.
Q: Why did you select EQ2?
One of the things that anyone who works in residential, probably human services in general, but especially in residential treatment for youth, we all share a problem with really high turnover among our frontline staff. These are the staff who are just kind of up against challenges all the time. So really high turnover. And when we do any type of, like, polling or we do exit interviews, when staff leave, we ask them why they’re leaving. They don’t say they’re leaving because of the kids. They say they’re leaving most often for us because they feel a lack of support.
So I loved EQ2 from the beginning because it was like, here’s a support program for staff, just by facilitating the program for staff, that’s an investment in staff. That’s a sign to them that we do care about your well being, we do want to invest in you, we do want to support you. And the real benefit is teaching them skills that they can use in the moment, in those really challenging times. So that’s really what jumped out at me about EQ2 and why I felt like it filled this void, because so much of what we do, we do training for staff, and particularly we will train staff on trauma informed care. We’ll have them come and sit in the classroom and we train them on neurobiology and all of these different systems, and we talk at them, whereas EQ2 is really sharing power with them. It’s sharing skills with them, and it’s doing it in a collaborative way – in an engaging way. Not only do I love the content, but I love the modality in the way that we’re sharing the information with them.
To learn more about EQ2, click here.