Program Services is interested in developing some important new relationships! Program Services continuing education is partnering with professional associations, and community colleges, and other oganizations to provide 24/7 access to online course and home study continuing education offerings to members.

Program Services Continuing Education supports professional associations and other organizations serving groups of mental health professionals. Program Services enables professional associations and other organizations to provide its members with access to approved quality continuing education opportunities that will meet initial entry and renewal obligations.

From our experience in teaching laws and rules courses, practice errors and ethics classes, Program Services has learned that membership in a professional association is critical to a discipline. Membership in professional associations supports the discipline through with state legislation, federal policy efforts, and in local community. Program Services enhances the professional associations with whom we partner through the continuing education benefit.

Program Services contributes back to the sponsoring association a percentage of its online, home study and live online broadcast sales purchased through the affiliate's link at the association's website. Members have access to important classes on topics such as supervision, documentation, substance abuse, ethics, confidentiality, federal and state laws, emergency services, evidence-based approached to counseling, abuse and trauma, and more.

Program Services applauds our affiliates: the Florida Association for Marriage and Family Therapy; the Florida Association of School Psychologists; Valencia Enterprises (Valencia Community College), River Region Human Services, SAP Referral Services, Inc., Mobile Technical Institute and South Carolina Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.

“We see this as a forward thinking option for leaders of associations to consider as it will bolster their benefits to members” said Karen Albig Smith, continuing education director with Program Services. She went on to state that associations able to offer approved continuing education access to its members attract more members and keep existing members.

Program Services has links available for other mental health professional associations from any of the fifty U.S. states. We enjoy national approval as a CE provider from the American Psychological Association, the National Board of Certified Counselors, and the National Alcohol and Drug Abuse Association, the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker and Marriage and Family Therapist Board, the Alabama State Board of Social Work Examiners, the Nevada Board of Marriage and Family Therapy and Licensed Professional Counselors and the California Board of Behavioral Sciences.

Many professional associations, in an effort to improve member services while also adding a source of revenue, are exploring ways to offer state-of-the-art continuing education home study, on-line studies and live online broadcasts to its membership. However, due to lack of resources, high starts up costs, etc., are simply unable implement such a program.

Many state licensure or certificate boards have implemented various required continuing education topics/hours for license renewal or initial licensure. Program Services has developed and effective way for your association to achieve these basic goals. If your association or group is interested in becoming an affiliate please view the full overview below.

Affiliate On-Line Education Overview

Program Services is pleased to announce the availability of a new service – Affiliate On-Line Education. Program Services has developed and effective way for your association to achieve several basic goals.

1. Provide state-of-the-art continuing education Home Study courses, On-line , and Live Online Broadcasts to your valued members, without costs or time-consuming administration, or management problems. These offerings include any state mandated courses. Program Services has developed and currently offers the required curriculum for most states, i.e., Prevention of Medical Errors, Domestic Violence, HIV/AIDS, Ethics, and Professional Ethics for Psychologists. If we don't have the courseware you need we will develop it.

2. Generate a new source of income for your association. Most importantly, there are no costs or fees for our service, a user friendly agreement, and the ability to terminate the program at any time, by simply removing our link from your web site

3. Reach potential new members due to enhanced services and offerings. Reach your association’s dually licensed members and professionals outside the association;

Please see our approvals page for a current listing of the national and state organizations that have awarded provider approval to Program Services.

Affiliate Commission: (What’s in it for our association?)

All Home Study/On-Line Class/Live Class/Live Online Broadcast sales generated through the affiliate web site will generate a commission of: 15% of the total sale (less S&H re: home study) paid for continuing education material owned or copyrighted by Program Services & Karen Albig Smith. 35% of the total sale (less S&H re: home study) paid for material owned or copyrighted by the affiliate or their designees and offered through Program Services. Affiliate sales statistics are archived in a special database and provided to the affiliate on a quarterly basis. These reports are emailed quarterly. The commissions are paid to affiliates quarterly.

Definition: (Exactly what is the Affiliate program?)

The Affiliate On-Line Education system is a link between our website located at www.programservices.org and the website of a participating affiliate member.

This link is for the sole purpose of allowing the affiliate’s membership direct access to our large selection of on-line courses and home study (mail-out) and Live Online Broadcast offerings. Program Services currently offers mental health professionals a large selection of easy to use courseware via onine,home study, book studies, web-based studies, live courses in North Carolina and Florida, and live online broadcasts.

Ideally, to generate the maximum number of sales and maintain continuity on the affiliate web site, the affiliate will need to create a continuing education page. Associations will simply add a “hyperlinked sentence” or an icon with the words “click here” underneath.

Each time an association member or interested party visits your web site to purchase courseware; they simply click the online/home study link. This transports them to the Program Services main gateway. Once there, they would select the continuing education product of their choice, add their purchases to a shopping cart system, and then pay by credit card (SSL secure server) or check. Part of the customers purchase profile contains a special code that identifies:·

• Where sale came from: Which affiliate web site this customer came from. ·

• Sales statistics: How many courses were purchased what the titles were and what the total sale was, less shipping & handling charge. (Home study only) · Customer information.: What type license held, the license number, what state licensed, name, address, phone number, fax number and email address.

• On-line posttests. Once completed, we have a record of the passing score, questions missed, and the dates/times the student logged in and out of the course material.·

• On-line evaluations. Once completed, we have a record of comments the student made about the courseware, the course evaluation scores (1-5) in each of the following areas: Objectives- Instruction-Content-Teaching Methods-Relevancy-What I liked best about the offering-What I liked least about the offering-Future offering topic recommendations-Overall Comments about the offering. For online courses the CE Certificate can be printed out once learners have successfully achieved a minimum 80% passing score.

Affiliate produced material: (Can we develop material for our membership, and then have Program Services market it?)

Sure, Program Services will market and provide technical support for any continuing education offerings you develop, providing you follow the criteria we have established for course development. We will provide guidelines that outline the requirements and standards required for continuing education offerings. Limited consultation is available from Program Services continuing education director to assist members in complying with the provider approval organization continuing education requirements. Your association would need to pre-approve these materials to determine the appropriateness of the materials for your members.

Affiliate, and or membership satisfaction:

(How do we know our members are happy with the offerings?)

As a part our ongoing provider approval requirements, Program Services cannot issue CE Credit without the completion of an evaluation form. Upon request Program Services will provide evaluation data to assist you in making decisions regarding your continuing education offerings. This data can help you in determining how well any programs you have designed, are meeting the requirements of your members.

Program Services is required to publish a grievance policy for managing complaints and disagreements with consumers. We will use those protocols with any difficulties that arise with our services. If there are any concerns with product quality, customer service, or technical support just bring it to our attention and we will do what we can to fairly address the problem. If at any time you are unhappy you can simply stop participating in the program. Just let us know you are terminating the program and remove the link from your web site!

Our agreement with affiliates:

(What will Program Services do for your association?)

Program Services offers our affiliates the following:

• A large selection of online,home study offerings, book studies, web-based studies that cover most state mandated as well as other evidence-based subjects. More continue to be in development and are added each year. Our newer offerings are featured on our home page for one year.

• Technical support or instruction for the use of our on-line class system, either by phone or email.

• The processing and handling of all orders, which come from your web site.**

• Assistance or ideas for setting up a link on your web site, or creating a continuing education offering page.

• Commission income and affiliate sales reports issued on a quarterly basis.

• The handling of any disputed credit card charges, or the fraudulent use of any credit card.***

• Any grievances or problems, which arise from the sale of our products.***
  Twenty-four hour, seven-day online access to on-line offerings and registration for home studies.

• Expedient shipment of all home study orders (within three days by priority mail)

• Issuing of all applicable CE Credits either by fax, mail, email and reported to CE Broker monthly when applicable.

*(We add approximately five to ten new offerings each year.)

**This includes, but is not limited to, shipping & handling of home study material, credit card processing, registration and data collection, the issuing of CE Certificates on-line,or by fax or email, the gathering of mandatory evaluation data, etc.

***These can include, but are not limited to, loss of home study material by USPS, damage in shipping, slow delivery, no delivery due to insufficient or incorrect shipping. (This is extremely rare.)

Your agreement with us:

(What the affiliate will do for Program Services?)

The only absolute requirement is that your association has a website, and is willing to place a link with a sufficient explanation about the educational opportunity to our main entry page. Secondly, to periodically advertise the service to your members!

Market and advertise that our continuing education offerings are now available through your website, in your newsletter, when you use direct mail, fax or email, etc. This helps both your association and Program Services reach our mutual goals.

Add a page to your website dedicated specifically to continuing education offerings. This should highlight both our offerings list and yours as well.

Communication is the beginning of understanding. We encourage you to stay in touch with us, ask questions, make suggestions, offer criticisms, get to know us better, etc. We are always interested in finding new ways of improving our products and services, but our affiliate relationships are extra special. We are always available to answer questions or to simply chat about your association, and its needs.

About us:

All Program Services offerings are developed and approved by the Director of Continuing Education, Karen Albig Smith, MAT, LMFT, CAP, MAC,LCAS,SAP, an experienced therapist, trainer, consultant, and research associate. With over 30 years of experience in both mental health and substance abuse, she has worked in most treatment settings, including EAP, participation in policy and regulatory efforts, conducted research on substance abuse, and has supervised and trained many professionals across the southeastern United States. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, and a clinical member and approved supervisor for the AAMFT, and is a Certified Addiction Professional with a Master Addiction Counselor certificate from NAADAC. The National Association of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors named her "Counselor of the Year" In 1999.

Customer service, technical support,the registration and publication staff are here to assist your members when they call for help Monday through Friday 9AM-5PM.

Our consultants represent all the major counseling professions and work directly with the Director of Continuing Education in the development of new offerings. This includes test construction and field testing, review of evaluation data for offering revision, and to provide input into the needs assessment and curriculum selection process. To enhance offering review and augment research efforts on new offerings as well as those due for revision.

Information systems and database management and technical support are provided by Computer Solutions Inc. and Thewwwstore, Inc.