Planning Interviewer and Trainer Training

1. Articulate what you expect SIS to do for your project.
   Write down the vision, outcomes, and time-frame, and share it with the people you support, their families, providers, and other key stakeholders. For example, We are committed to using SIS to help develop individual objectives among all those we support. We envision supporting 4 people to become trainers and will teach 15 support coordinators on how to successfully conduct a SIS interview. Once trained, each support coordinators will complete 30 interviews before December 15th.
   
2. Identify the trainer capacity needed.
   There are no set rules on how many trainers you will need to implement SIS. This varies greatly depending on the scope and intensity of work. One jurisdiction may need 300 interviewers while for another, 20 may suffice.
   
3. Determine the role of SIS trainers.
   Will the trainers only conduct trainings or will they be responsible for completing interviews as well? Will they be full-time or part-time trainers? If part-time, what current work/responsibilities will they “give up” in order to have the time to meet this training need?
   
4. Identify reporting relationships.
   Determine who the trainers will report to. This may require a matrix management strategy where the trainer receives clinical supervision (content expertise on SIS) from one person and programmatic supervision (scheduling, who is to be trained, when) from another.
   
5. Define your internal interviewer reliability and qualification review (IRQR) process.
   All interviewers and trainers must complete an annual IRQR. The process for scheduling, fulfilling, and tracking of IRQRs should be identified and management strategies to be used to assure ongoing quality improvement.
   
6. Identify the pool of possible SIS trainers.
   Identify where you anticipate securing trainers and how you will determine their availability. The success of your SIS implementation plan will rely  on your ability to train and IRQR SIS interviewers as needed. 
   
7. Determine strategies for managing potential real or perceived conflict of interest.
   In situations where trainers and interviewers have control over the resources and opportunities that could be made available to those being assessed, an inherent conflict of interest may exist. 

Build an Infrastructure to Support and Maintain Your Trainers

Maintaining your cadre of high quality trainers is crucial to your success. Consider building an infrastructure to maintain and support trainers, which might include:

• Regular opportunities for sharing training experiences, barriers, promising approaches, and assuring that any modifications are uniformly implemented.
• The development of a “community of trainers” who can generate group solutions and improve the overall effectiveness of your SIS implementation process. For example, developing strategies for dealing with interviewer (and trainer) turnover and improving processes for cultivating new trainers.
• Supporting the analysis of IRQR data to determine potential training trends, identify individuals for whom interviews are difficult ,and improve the overall quality of the training process.