P&P February 2016

How the National Staff Development and Training Association is providing a resource for the human service field unlocking a STRONGER WORKFORCE I By Freda Bernotavicz Key The to

human service workforce. As a result, human service training and development professionals need expertise in several fields: human service program knowledge, a broad range of skills related to human performance and organizational improvement, and the ability to use a variety of delivery modalities. An increasing body of research is clarifying the relationships among training, organizational develop- ment, workforce issues, and client outcomes suggesting the need for an ecological perspective on workforce development. We need to pay attention to organizational development that goes outside the scope of traditional classroom training to focus on orga- nizational performance improvement and to adopt comprehensive evaluation strategies to increase accountability and provide evidence of the effective- ness of specific approaches. Like the human service field as a whole, the training and develop- ment system is experiencing constant change and is nested in a broader contextual context. Effective programs use a variety of modalities, including e-learning, to overcome time, distance,

n human services our workforce is our greatest asset and also our largest organizational expense. The costs are not just in payroll, but also in recruiting, training, and retaining staff. Within one program in Texas (Family and Protective Services), where turnover is high, the cost to the agency for each staff person that left was $54,000 for a total cost to the program of $72.7 million in 2013 (Sunset Staff Report, June 2014). Creating a competent, stable, well- trained workforce to provide quality services is a priority for all agencies. An effective and efficient training and development program is critical to that endeavor. In turn, these programs need to be staffed by competent indi- viduals with state of the art knowledge and skills. For more than 30 years, the National Staff Development and Training Association (NSDTA), an affiliate of the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA), has filled that role as the primary profes- sional association for human service training and development. Complex social problems, with changing mandates and priorities, require a timely and appropriate response to ensure a well-trained,

Freda Bernotavicz is a senior research associate at the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public Services.

See NSDTA on page 28

Illustration via Veer

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February 2016   Policy&Practice