Northern Rivers: SATRI

The Sidney Albert Training and Research Institute (SATRI), operated by Northern Rivers Family of Services member agency Parsons Child & Family Center, is one of the premier human services educational and training institutions in New York State. Based in Albany, SATRI provides center-based, onsite, and online trainings to thousands of industry professionals each year, in addition to delivering more than 12,000 units of training to Northern Rivers personnel.

Founded in 1964, SATRI has evolved and grown to meet the ever-changing needs of the human services field. Continuing curriculum development, ongoing technological evolution, and a passion for helping and preserving the dignity of children, adults, and families as they heal, learn, and grow have led hundreds of organizations to depend on SATRI to train their employees.

SATRI is the primary provider of statewide training and technical assistance for the New York state’s Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) Bridges to Health (B2H) waiver (46,967 trained statewide since 2007) and the Office of Mental Health (OMH) Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) Waiver (2,450 trained statewide since 2002). Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths- (CANS) specific curricula are embedded in B2H the Waiver Service Provider and Health Care Integrator (HCI) training curriculum and in the OMH 14 Caret curriculum for HCBS workers.

One of SATRI’s greatest strengths is its direct connection to Northern Rivers programs and services. Organizational deployment of CANS in direct service programs began in 2007, and today all intervention-based programs perform risk screens of 15 safety measures from the CANS at intake and in the aftermath of events such as hospitalizations. In 2009, the Parsons HCBS program embedded the CANS scores directly into service planning and provision, creating a direct correlation between the results of the CANS and the goals of the actual service plan. OMH approved the method developed by SATRI, which was then incorporated into SATRI’s statewide training. In 2013, OCFS subcontracted with SATRI to provide statewide CANS-NY specific training to providers.

SATRI’s strengths in innovative curriculum development are evident in the Northern Rivers CANS-NY training manual and toolkit developed by Dr. Evelyn Kintner. Dr. Kintner has used the CANS in a variety of modalities to construct risk profiles of programs, evaluate the effectiveness of programs, and develop quarterly acuity reports to identify safety concerns and behavioral patterns related to youth.

Northern Rivers – SATRI/Parsons is excited to be a part of the Institute’s Provider Collaborative, contributing to more meaningful and effective use of the CANS-NY throughout New York State. Northern Rivers – SATRI/Parsons works closely with Institute leadership to deploy their extensive experience with curriculum development and to provide training, coaching, and technical assistance relationships with CANS-NY users in capital region of the State.

Brandon Howlett serves as the Capitol Region lead for the Institute, with over ten years of experience with NYS OMH’s Home and Community Based Service program. Since October 2016, Brandon has been a full time member of the SATRI training team and brings his skills of service likange, planning and development, and outcomes monitoring to the Institute. If you would like more information about support resources in your region, feel free to contact Howlett.