Podcast: Acting With Intention Promotes Culture Change Within a Caring Work Environment

 In some of his most popular collaborations with CPI, Loftus has used family therapy models to decode organizational dysfunction, explored neuroscience to affirm the benefits of trauma-informed care, challenged human services professionals to step up their collegial communication, and provided practical advice for community workers on staying safely engaged with those in their care.
 
As a Senior Level CPI Certified Instructor and licensed mental health counselor—and now, as a compliance officer in his behavioral health agency—he’s made it a point to network globally with his peers in CPI’s online Instructor Community, helping human services professionals bridge their clinical expertise with the best practices of Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® training to facilitate true care and welfare while ensuring safety and security.
 
So it’s been a rare delight after all of this correspondence and content to discover the person, and the voice, behind the bylines. Not surprisingly, T.D. Loftus—or “Tom,” as he introduced himself to Unrestrained host Terry Vittone—remains just as concerned with the importance of intentional culture-building in conversation as he is in his editorial work.
 
Drawing on his vast clinical experience, Loftus discusses a range of challenges that many clinicians and human services professionals must resolve in their own careers. In this interview with T.D. Loftus, you'll learn:

• How to sustain continuity and consistency across shifts in residential care
• Who your first allies should be when attempting to change the culture in your workplace
• Why truly inclusive staff dynamics and equity in leadership are vital to lasting culture change
• When to facilitate and refresh training, so that best practices are not merely learned, but applied
• What well-known models of therapy can help you identify and improve in your organizational culture and client care
• Where to target your efforts to successfully shift paradigms and strengthen your team approach

 
Anybody who’s ever tried to lead a paradigm shift within their own organization has heard a response like, “The scope of this is too big,” or “We’ll never be that kind of a facility,” or “Culture change is too much to ask for, let’s just shoot for better compliance.” If you’re feeling the fatigue of overcoming objections, this interview will give you the second wind you need to take a renewed and constructive approach to your work.
 
As Loftus puts it, “Yes, this stuff is advanced. Yes, you can grasp it. Yes, you can use it. And we’re going to figure out how we’re going to do it together.”
 
This episode of Unrestrained is a wonderful bookend to our conversation with social worker Randy Frost earlier this summer. Like Frost, Loftus has worked extensively in youth residential care and community behavioral health settings, and he shares Frost’s person-centered attitude about delivering meaningful, trauma-informed care.
 
Tom Loftus is also just as adamant that culture change isn’t only possible, it’s essential to providing the support our clients and communities need to recover, grow, and thrive. This rich and informative dialog demystifies the process, identifying what each of us can do to facilitate robust cultures of caring and safety in the treatment environment. Make time to hear this critical conversation.

“If you don’t feel physiologically and psychologically safe, you can’t engage in meaningful learning and meaningful #therapy.” -T.D. Loftus, Senior Level CPI Certified Instructor #BehaviorManagement