We have been busy making progress on the 24 Corporate Congress Bills that were passed during the 2021 Session this past June. The Strategic Planning Workgroup has taken on the task of implementing each one of the bills in conjunction with AWARE’s Strategic Plan. The group largely consists of supervisors, managers, and corporate congress leadership.
Each bill has been assigned to a smaller sub-group of committee members based on their respective field(s) of expertise. Bills have also been assigned to specific goals within AWARE’s Strategic Plan.
So far, 10 of the 24 bills have solid proposals on the table and are considered complete or nearly complete. They include the following:
ACC-02 ABA training for CFE: a bill to develop, implement, and sustain a behavior-based program to support the students at the Center for Excellence.
Trainings are scheduled to take place at the Center in February with further trainings possible in March.
ACC-04 Increase BCBA and RBT services in MT: A bill to expand our outreach and presence of BCBA and RBT services in the communities we serve.
ABA has become its own dedicated service line allowing growth of BCBAs and RBTs across MT.
ACC-31 Provision of cell phones to community service providers: AWARE is to provide cell phones to employees that can be preinstalled with security software and other measures to ensure HIPAA compliance while maintaining staff community connections to support AWARE clients.
A draft policy has been completed and is undergoing review to allow for a mix of cell phone stipends and company-provided cell phones based on individual need.
ACC-08 AWARE Day: AWARE should adopt the first Friday in August as Aware Day and use this as a day of celebration for all the hard work that the employees and leadership team do on a consistent basis.
Tentatively scheduling the first official AWARE Day as early as April 2022 in conjunction with a fundraising appeal.
ACC-09 Best Day Ever: Program managers and staff of youth group homes shall work towards making events like holidays and birthdays the “best day ever” for clients.
Kicking off the first “Best Day Ever” this Christmas in the form of an official fundraising effort with a goal of raising $9,000 to provide $50 in gifts for each residential client.
ACC-18 Therapy services for Employees: A bill where all staff will have access to clinical consultation therapy services as requested to support self-care and employee retention.
This bill has been incorporated into the new Employee Assistance Program available for staff as early as January 2022.
ACC-20 Stress management courses to help staff maintain work-related stress: A bill to implement reoccurring stress management options to help with retention.
Coming to employees January 2022 is a program through AWARE’s benefit plan called Healthy is Wellness which will bolster existing stress management training.
ACC-25 AWARE to allow employees to share vacation, personal, and sick time with HR and supervisor approval: AWARE will allow employees to donate their own vacation, sick, and personal time to a donated "time pot".
A draft policy has been completed and is undergoing review at this time.
ACC-26 Annual performance raises to retain dedicated employees: AWARE will adhere to annual performance reviews done by supervisors through Paylocity which will then determine an annual performance raise for Non-Union employees.
This bill is moving forward as a means of conducting timely performance evaluations through Paylocity and tracking them as a key metric within each service line. The evaluations themselves will not dictate pay raise levels.
ACC-30 A bill to compensate on-call participants: A bill where each on-call PACT staff will receive a flat $100 for their on-call week.
A draft policy has been completed and is under review.