Recently I spoke on the topic of sustainability, and afterwards received an email from a member of the audience. She wrote to tell me that although she agreed with one of my messages--that asking for help is a critical part of sustaining a program--she wasn't convinced people knew how to ask for help very effectively. I'm pretty sure she's right. Asking for help is easier said than done. So what follows are some brief articles and posts on the topic.

I am dashing off to the airport to catch a flight to Philadelphia, so I have only a moment for a quick post. But I wanted to point yor attention to this great piece on having difficult conversations. It makes me think about the kinds of conflict that sometimes flair up when we work collaboratively as part of a SART or MDT.

We've talked about rehiring quality SANEs who've left the program as one effective recruitment tool in a previous post, but there's a great Conversation Starter this week that touches on the same topic. Keep in mind, it was written for the business world, but the principles are still applicable...
 

Anthony Tjan has a great post today about keeping employees happy. It's something we talk about all the time, since we know people aren't always paid what they deserve, and we know the hours people give to call are often ridiculous. And yet, there are some programs that have very little turnover, and it's not necessarily because they have more money than everyone else.
 

Over at the Forensic Healthcare site, Jennifer Pierce Weeks, current IAFN president, has a great guest post on evaluating SANE trainers. If you are responsible for finding someone to train your staff or are contemplating hosting a training in the future, Jen has some great tips on what to consider to make sure you get quality training without necessarily bankrupting your program in the process.