In our latest Customer Spotlight interview, we spoke with Jen Russell, Staff Development Coordinator at Trinity Services in Illinois. A Safety-Care trainer since 2011, Jen shared how one of the state’s largest providers for adults with disabilities has built a training program that goes above and beyond, and how a prevention-first culture shapes everything from behavior support plans to staff relationships.
Trinity Services began 75 years ago as a small private school, and it still operates that private therapeutic day school today, providing academic supports to students ages 3 to 22. In the decades since, Trinity has grown into one of the largest providers in Illinois for adults with disabilities, with much of its work concentrated in the New Lenox and Joliet areas and additional sites in Des Plaines, Wilmington, Peoria, Mascoutah, and Carbondale.
The scale of Trinity’s services is remarkable:
- More than 150 residential homes, apartments, intermediate care facilities, and shared living arrangements, with two long-term stabilization homes preparing to open
- Community day services, psychosocial rehabilitation programs, home-based supports, supported employment, and respite care
- Three of Illinois’ six statewide crisis prevention teams
- Outpatient programs including four family counseling center sites, a homeless support team, and mobile crisis support teams
Across all of these programs, Trinity supports adults 18 and over with neurodevelopmental diagnoses, mental illness, or a dual diagnosis of both.
Coordinating Training for Nearly 1,300 Employees
As Staff Development Coordinator, Jen’s department is responsible for conducting and coordinating all initial and annual trainings agency-wide, and with just under 1,300 employees, that is a lot of training. Jen oversees classroom and on-the-job training for all of Trinity’s direct support staff and case managers, including Safety-Care. Nearly every new staff member completes initial Safety-Care training as part of onboarding, with only a few exceptions for roles that don’t involve interaction with the people Trinity supports.
Jen has been a Safety-Care trainer since 2011, and she was trained in multiple other crisis prevention models before that. For Trinity, the choice is clear.
“Safety-Care is definitely hands down the best fit for our agency,” Jen told us. Trinity has a strong background in behavioral science, employing just under 50 behavior analysts, behavior therapists, and RBTs, plus even more staff trained in behavior analysis working in other roles. The agency is also deeply rooted in positive psychology, placing emphasis on creating positive environments, building meaningful and supportive relationships, and helping both the people they support and their staff flourish. As Jen put it, all of those values line up well with Safety-Care’s philosophies and goals.
Going Above and Beyond in the Training Room
Trinity is known for structuring its Safety-Care training to emphasize strong competencies and real practice, and Jen walked us through exactly how they do it.
Smaller classes, more trainers. Trinity limits classes to 20 participants and always staffs three trainers per class. Because staff attending any given class often work in drastically different roles, the trainers split the class into three groups for competency practice, with each group made up of staff who support people with similar needs or who work in similar environments. This lets trainees practice the situations they are most likely to encounter and learn by observing others.
Rotating trainers. For every new competency practice, the groups stay the same, but the three trainers rotate, allowing participants to access different examples and different trainer styles throughout the class.
Extended time on prevention and de-escalation. Trinity spends considerably longer in the incident prevention and incident minimization sections of the Safety-Care curriculum than the minimum requirements. In Trinity’s classes, the trainers break down each de-escalation strategy and practice to competency before introducing the next strategy. “I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone that when staff are more skilled in those areas, they’re less likely to need to use physical safety skills,” Jen explained, “which oftentimes naturally results in more positive relationships, more effective teaching and learning, and less injuries to everyone.”
The approach takes significantly longer, particularly in initial classes, but the payoff is visible: staff gain confidence in the skills and return for recertification still able to demonstrate those skills without needing much correction. As Jen summarized, it is much easier to prevent a problem than it is to manage one.
Implementation Across Many Programs and Settings
New staff complete initial Safety-Care training as part of a larger onboarding process that totals about 56 hours of training, then return annually for recertification. Some recertifications happen within individual departments, led by a Safety-Care trainer already working in that program, which allows examples to be tailored to the people that staff support every day. For other departments, Trinity offers at least three Safety-Care classes each month at its training center.
Even there, customization starts before class begins. The team reviews the roster in advance and separates participants into their three practice groups, because a therapist in a psychosocial rehabilitation program, a member of the homeless support team, a school staff member, and a residential staff member all encounter very different situations.
Extending Safety-Care to Families
Trinity’s Illinois Crisis Prevention Network (ICPN) teams have been teaching Safety-Care for Families for several years. By the time a family is referred to ICPN, they have often been struggling for an extended period, and the person they support may be at risk of losing their placement or moving to a more restrictive setting.
“Those families are often at the point where they just don’t know what to do anymore,” Jen shared. Safety-Care for Families provides a shared language and specific skills to try, and Trinity’s trainers are able to practice, model, and coach families individually on how to use those skills in the ways most likely to be effective with their loved ones.
That work has grown into a newer collaboration with the Illinois Department of Human Services (DHS) and the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), providing families in need of added supports with training on the essential skills from the Safety-Care for Families curriculum. The goal is to reach families before a crisis, rather than waiting until they are already in one. It is the same prevention focus that runs through everything Trinity does.
The Power of a Shared Language
Jen believes that shared language is one of the biggest benefits of using Safety-Care across an organization.
“Everyone is speaking the same language, and so we’re always on the same page,” she explained, which is especially valuable when teams come together in stressful situations.
At Trinity, Safety-Care language such as triggers, signals, Help, Prompt, and Wait is not just everyday vocabulary.
It is built into the agency’s systems:
- Behavior support plans include a dedicated section where the behavior analyst documents each person’s signal behaviors, their triggers, and how to use de-escalation (Help, Prompt, and Wait) with them specifically.
- The stair step visual becomes what Jen calls a “cheat sheet” behavior plan, showing staff what escalation looks like for an individual person and which strategies to try at each stage.
- Incident reports use the same language, asking staff which Safety-Care strategies they used and whether they were effective.
Refreshers and Retraining That Support, Not Punish
Beyond initial training and annual recertification, Trinity is rolling out a six-month refresher: a 30-minute video focused on incident prevention and minimization, sent to staff six months after their initial or recertification class as a quick skills check-in.
Trinity also uses targeted retraining. When a staff member is injured by someone engaging in unsafe behavior, the incident is reviewed by the agency’s risk management coordinator, who is also a Safety-Care trainer, along with the safety committee. If they feel it would be beneficial, the staff member retakes the appropriate Safety-Care course when it is safe to do so.
“It’s always stressed that this is not something punitive,” Jen emphasized, “but really added supports to keep everyone safe.”
What Staff Are Saying
Role-playing and practicing in front of others can feel intimidating, and Trinity preps staff for that going in. But even the most apprehensive participants often report in course evaluations that the practice was their favorite part of training, saying things like “now I know how to respond in those challenging situations and I’m comfortable using these skills.” At the end of a long training day, staff consistently report feeling ready to put their skills to work back at their sites.
Success That Doesn’t Always Show Up on a Graph
As a behavior analyst, Jen loves data. But some of the most meaningful outcomes she sees are harder to chart.
The first is the growth in positive relationships. When someone has a history of engaging in unsafe behavior, they can develop a reputation, and staff may become apprehensive about working with them. But when staff use prevention and de-escalation strategies well and see far less of that behavior, something changes.
“They then start advocating for people and telling other staff, oh no, they may get upset sometimes, but really they’re cool. Just get to know them,” Jen shared. “And that really is a huge win for everyone involved.”
The second is watching people reduce their need for behavioral supports. In roughly the last three years:
- More than 20 people supported by Trinity no longer require a behavior support plan, moving instead to a skill acquisition plan only.
- About 10 people who had temporary restrictions put in place due to the intensity of unsafe behaviors have had those restrictions reduced or removed entirely.
“It’s not solely a result of Safety-Care being effective,” Jen acknowledged, “but it really is one of those support pieces that we feel has a significant impact.”
Would Trinity Recommend Safety-Care?
Jen didn’t hesitate: “I would definitely recommend it to any organization.”
The behavioral foundation of the curriculum works across a variety of populations, and while there may be slight differences in how the skills are used with different individuals, when implemented correctly, Safety-Care is the most effective program Trinity has found. Most importantly, it aligns with the agency’s values: relationship focused for everyone, and safety for all.
About Trinity Services
Founded in 1950, Trinity Services, Inc. is a nonprofit organization providing person-directed services and supports to people with developmental disabilities and mental health needs so they may flourish and live full and abundant lives. Trinity serves more than 6,800 adults and children across 35+ Illinois communities in the Chicago suburbs and Central and Southern Illinois, offering residential services, community day services, employment services, a school, therapeutic horseback riding, respite, recreation, and a range of therapeutic services.
Since 1992, Trinity has maintained the highest possible level of accreditation from the Council on Quality and Leadership: Person-Centered Excellence Accreditation, With Distinction. Guiding it all is Trinity’s belief that “Everything Counts,” meaning every interaction is an opportunity to promote confidence, self-esteem, and personal goals for the people Trinity serves.
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