Therap Services is organizing a three-day regional conference in Maine this fall. The conference will take place from September 30 - October 2, 2008 at the Hilton Garden Inn Auburn Riverwatch, in Auburn, Maine. Another three-day conference is being organized in Kansas City which will take place from October 28 - 30, 2008, at the Ramada Inn- Overland Park, Kansas. This conference is also known as “Side-by-Side Technology: Therap, CDS Training Conference I in Kansas” as it will bring together two industry leaders in the field of utilizing web-based technology to support people with developmental disabilities and training a workforce to deliver quality support services. Multiple interactive sessions and workshops focusing on the services provided by Therap as well as the curriculum and the Learning Management System offered by College of Direct Support (CDS) will be featured in this conference.

These conferences will include many training opportunities to efficiently manage and use the Therap system for handling day to day needs of agencies, along with interaction with Therap staff, Therap users and professionals in the developmental disability community. The conferences are a good platform for sharing views and experiences on the system to help design and improve Therap products and services.

The conferences are open for all existing, new and potential Therap users. They will have separate tracks and sessions for users at all different levels.  Here is what participants can look forward to during these conferences:

Therap Regional Conference in Maine	Therap Conference in Kansas City / Side-by-Side Technology: Therap, CDS Training Conference I in Kansas
Training on Therap applications Brainstorming about the future of technology and its use in the developmental disability industry Interactive workshops Presentation sessions Training on Therap through exciting games Discussions on topics including HIPAA, Data Security and Electronic Signatures Individual and family access to data Networking with other Therap users and industry experts Sharing ideas to create new and improved Therap Training and Support materials Special sessions for Provider Administrators Therap in Maine	Presentation on Training Management System Integration with College of Direct Support Training on Therap applications Brainstorming sessions on the future of technology and its use for the developmental disability industry Interactive workshops Presentation sessions Training on Therap through exciting games Discussions on topics including HIPAA, Data Security and Electronic Signatures Individual and family access to data Networking with other Therap users and industry experts Sharing ideas to create new and improved Therap Training and Support materials Special sessions for Provider Administrators Therap in Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa

Therap Services, in collaboration with The Arc of California, will be hosting a series of one-day technology seminars for the developmental disability community in California from Nov 11- 21, this year. These seminars are going to focus on the technology tailored to increase quality of care and to reduce costs for service providers, health professionals, regulators, and family members supporting people with developmental disabilities in California.

Similar educational seminars have also been scheduled for the developmental disability community in New York from Dec 1-4, 2008. These will be open for family members, case workers, DDSO employees and other professionals.

Please visit our website at www.TherapServices.net for registration details and early bird discounts.

Therap FirstPage was designed to give a summarized view of all items needing attention for Therap users. This is the personalized page users see when they log onto the system which lists counts of all unread reports from the different Therap modules that they are using. Although the FirstPage is a big help for users in finding new reports waiting for them, it does not typically provide individual-specific summaries; it requires the users to go to different modules and go through the forms to obtain an overview of what has happened to a particular individual. To address this issue, Therap’s usability team has been working on the T-Sync concept which will provide individual-specific data views that are much easier to visualize, analyze, and manage essentially giving one a picture of how an individual’s day went by revealing all the documentation completed during the given time period.

At its simplest, T-Sync will resemble a table on which the vertical axis will be time (ideally, with the ability to vary the range and scale for easy zooming), and the horizontal axis will be the services, aggregated to categories. The Scope of the view can be varied, for example, it can be for just one individual in one program or for several individuals across multiple programs. The scope of the staff may vary as well to cover a single staff, all staff on duty, parents, volunteers, etc. Future events such as scheduled appointments or recommended procedures can also be viewed; these will be displayed in some distinctive manner to distinguish them from actual events.

The basic elements of T-Sync along with conceptual views, sketches and screenshots have been uploaded in Therap’s Usability Garage. Please take a look, join the discussions and help us perfect it.