Educational Opportunities

Through our programs and grants we provide many educational opportunities throughout Oregon for audiences consisting of families, medical providers, educators and service providers.

Pain Management Conference

This conference took place on Friday, October 14, 2005 at the Ambridge Events Center in NE Portland.  The conference was geared towards nurses and helping them achieve their six (6) hours of pain training. 

Continuing Medical Education-Community Consultations

Our multi discipline team program provides two CME opportunities per year to all of our fifteen (15) sites around the state to bring specialists into the community to present upon a topic of the communities choosing.  To see the list of past and upcoming presentations for this year click here.

CaCoon Self-Directed Modules for Professionals

Nursing Care of Children with Special Health Needs in the Community:

  • These modules have been developed for public health nurses working with children who have special health needs, but might be useful to other community nurses and professionals providing care coordination to these children and their families (school nurses, nurses in pediatric primary care offices).
  • The modules emphasize the potential health, developmental, psychological and educational needs of children and promotes intervening early to prevent detrimental sequelae. They have been developed and published by the CaCoon Program in collaboration with the MCHB-funded LEND Program and made possible through grants from Ford Family Foundation, Northwest Health Foundation, Hoover Family Foundation, and Rose E. Tucker Charitable Trust.   Completed Modules, Module order form.

Annual Conference

Each year we hold an Annual Conference around topics specific to children with special health needs.  We bring in our multidisciplinary teams and public health nurses from around the state as well as families and other interested partners.  On May 5th and 6th of 2005 we held our Annual Statewide Conference around Mental Health and Behavior Issues.  For more information on this and other past annual conferences click here.  The next Annual conference took place in the spring of 2006.

Learning Collaboratives as a Method for Systems Improvement

The method of improvement that is supported by the learning collaborative process has widespread international usage with reported positive results.  The major benefit of the learning collaborative method is the application,  testing  and re-visions of ideas that have worked in other settings and result in defined improvements.    Committed adults who have the support of their leaders and the time to test out new ideas do the work. The method looks for adults who willing to step up, analyze issues and try our new ideas.  

The improvement results of a learning collaborative is just one step toward community or agency learning.   The next step is to "spread" the learning to others and to other populations.  To spread the learning, the learning collaborative needs to generate improvements that are measurable. Some people on the teams, need to agree to be local champions who can describe the change made and know the implications for barriers to other systems and be willing to suggest potential solutions.  

We want to try learning collaboratives with adults in many aspects of care for children and youth with special needs. These times of economic hardship, over load of information and growing needs of children and youth who deserve a quality life challenges us to try out new methods.  If you are interested in participating in a learning collaborative, please contact Jim Ledbetter or Sabrina Freewynn.

Telehealth Opportunities

We are developing new remote conferencing systems that allow us to broadcast educational opportunities around the state.  Teleconferencing systems help people to receive education without having to travel long distances to get it.  See our Title V Telehealth page for more information.