I am proud to introduce a new video in our CDR “Toolbox,” in which I provide a full demonstration of how to use the DataPool™ application to score a CANS through a tele-health interview.

We have put this video together because we often get questions like:

• So what does it actually look like to score a CANS?
• How does your software, the DataPool™, facilitate an optimal CANS-rating process?
• Do you have any videos we can use in clinical supervision or training?

So in this video, I demonstrate the actual rating of a CANS with a mother and her two children.  It is my idea that this video can be used in multiple ways:

For agencies and clinicians considering the CANS as their outcomes tool.

This shows the basics of CANS rating: a person-centered clinical interview that is relaxed, and doesn’t foreground the form, but instead uses it to mine essential information for treatment planning.  The CANS is a structure that brings a team together, and it focuses our work … but you’ll notice I never really highlight the CANS to this patient, nor do they care.  Instead, intuitively this client understands that I’m asking questions that matter, and then sees how the form guides our process.  This is the heart of any CANS approach, and makes it both clinically useful, and a nonintrusive way to get a measurement of needs and strengths.

As an extra bonus, we did this interview through tele-health, and we think it highlights how helpful CANS can be in a tele-health environment.  By putting the CANS right in the screen share, it beautifully structures the interview with the client in a transparent, and helpful way.

For those considering the DataPool™ as their implementation’s CANS application.

Our video highlights a few of the central features for front-line CANS raters (none of the supervision, agency, or system reports are featured in the video).  We highlight such things as the ease by which one finds a client, the helpfulness of the form (with tool-tips that help with scoring), and the two client-level reports.  The first of these is called the “CANS Profile” and includes normed information, that we demonstrate how to use with a client.  Then, we show the “Take Home Report” which is to be taken home by the caregiver when the interview is done, and which summarizes the “CANS Results” in consumer friendly ways.  I also demonstrate how the Take Home Report can be used to help clients identify how specific strengths will be drawn into treatment.  We know such strengths-driven plans have the best odds for success, and DataPool™ CANS reports help with the process.

For those seeking a more advanced CANS training video.

If you are implementing CANS in your program, it could be helpful to review this video with your front-line raters.  It shows with detail how the CANS works, and I include ‘pop-ups’ throughout that explain why I’m doing things in certain ways.  After watching this video, I think a healthy conversation could be held amongst clinicians and supervisors on what they did (or did not!) like about my clinical approach, and can work to develop their own approach to clinical assessment with the CANS.

In conclusion, I hope those of you who watch the video enjoy it, as well as find it useful.  Please let me know either way!