I Love My Job.... Tell Us About It! (and win)
By: Nadine Merker, Director of Member and Volunteer Engagement
Every year at AADE, I continue to see the passion, commitment and excitement that diabetes educators feel about the work that they do.
In reading one of my professional association’s blogs, I notice that one organization had launched an “I Love My Job” campaign to help celebrate and talk about the positive aspects of their work.
I can’t think of a better group to have a similar campaign than with diabetes educators… so we are launching this initiative with our MY AADE NETWORK volunteers to ask them to tell us (in 150 words or less) what you love about being a diabetes educator.
It is a great chance to share the love about the work you do and to perhaps to give recognition to the employers who are offering work practices that people appreciate.
Please email me (nmerker@aadenet.org) with your submission (remember 150 words or less) by Monday, May 2nd. The top 3 entries will each receive a year’s free membership to AADE. Please use the subject line “I Love My Job” when submitting your entry.
Why do you love your job??
Have You Considered Becoming an AADE Fellow?
By: Kathleen Gold, RN, MSN, CDE, Member Affiliates Council
According to Wikipedia “a fellow is a member of a group of learned people who work together as peers in the pursuit of mutual knowledge or practice”. An “AADE Fellow” is a member of a distinguished group of diabetes educators that are recognized for their outstanding contributions to diabetes education through clinical practice, research, education or health policy.
Have you considered applying to be an AADE Fellow? What an honor it would be to be held in high esteem as a role model for diabetes education. What a wonderful way to recognize your growth as a professional. How wonderful it would be to announce to your institution that you have been recognized as an American Association of Diabetes Educator Fellow.
Now is your opportunity to move your career in one more upward direction. Applications are now being accepted for the 2016 Fellow AADE Program.
Requirements:
- Possess a Baccalaureate degree
- Be a current AADE member with a minimum of 5 consecutive years of membership
- 10 years of experience in the field of Diabetes Education as an educator, clinician or researcher
- Be a leader who has made contributions to AADE and to diabetes education, and care through clinical practice, research, education, or health policy, including the development and implementation of mentorship program for diabetes educators
- Be involved in AADE on both the Local and National levels
- Complete the 2016 application
- Write a personal essay
- Obtain two letters of recommendation (one of which should be from a current Fellow of a healthcare association),
- Provide supporting documents that show evidence of their outstanding service to the field of diabetes education.
Take the next step in your professional development, apply today. Applications are due April 15th. For more information and the application visit our website, here, contact the Fellows Review Committee at FAADE@aadnet.org, or call 800-338-3633, ext. 4822
Mark Your Calendars For National Volunteer Week!
Make plans to thank your CB, LNG, and COI volunteers as we celebrate National Volunteer week beginning April 10. National Volunteer Week is a great opportunity to highlight volunteering in your group and recognize the volunteers you have!
Established in 1974, National Volunteer Week focuses national attention on the impact and power of volunteerism. This week draws the support and endorsement of the President and Congress, governors, mayors and municipal leaders as well as corporate partners and the local community.
How are you going to thank your volunteers? Why not take a moment and share your ideas for celebrating National Volunteer Week on either the National Leadership Network, or COI Leadership and Admin Network?
Looking for some ideas to celebrate your volunteers? Just go to the Volunteer Resource Center and find activities to thank your volunteers!
The New MY AADE NETWORK Is Almost Here - What You Need to Know
We're just two weeks away from the launch of the completely redesigned MY AADE NETWORK, and as volunteer leaders and administrators, you will continue to have special access to admin-only areas of the site.
When we launch on March 31st, you will find extensive help documentation (for both members and admins) accessible from the homepage of MY AADE NETWORK, but one of the biggest changes we wanted to alert you to is the placement of CB and COI landing page admin-only buttons. Previously, if you wanted to look at any of the behind-the-scenes information about your group, see how many members were in your CB, add a meeting notice, or edit your group's quick links...you would hover over the "Actions" box on the right-hand side of the page:
With the launch of the new site, those controls have been moved to the left-hand side of the page:
You'll see these control icons on all community homepages (CBs and COIs) and it allows you to do the following:
- House Icons: Take you back to your CB and COI homepage.
- Heart Icons: Adds this community to your list of personal favorites and select a daily, weekly, or monthly email update on group activities.
- Picture Icon: Allows you to access the group's media library.
- Ellipses Icon: Gives you access to admins-only controls: viewing members, adding meeting notices, and editing group links.
You’ll also notice that if you’re using MY AADE NETWORK on a tablet or mobile device, these controls will dynamically shift their location to accommodate the device you’re browsing on, but still give you access.
For any questions about the upcoming upgrade, please contact us.
What's New with AADE Advocacy?
By: Melissa Akinlawon, MaHC, AADE Advocacy Coordinator
First and foremost, since the introduction of our federal legislation in 2015– the Access to Quality Diabetes Education Act (H.R. 1726/ S. 1345) – AADE members and volunteers have stepped up and made their presence known in Congress and on the home front. We want to say thank you for your hard work and dedicated service thus far in the form of thousands of letters to your legislators, calls to legislative staffers, and in-state visits!
However, there is still work to be done and we have two upcoming events designed to bring everyone up to speed on what’s new with AADE Advocacy:
Statewide Advocacy Webinar/Call
Tuesday, March 29th – 12:00 pm Central
This webinar/call will cover review AADE’s state and federal advocacy initiatives and provide brief updates. The main focus of this event will be to educate member volunteers on the various roles that contribute to a productive grassroots advocacy program and review all the resources available to Coordinating Body leaders and State Grassroots Coordinators (SGCs). If you have been invited to attend the 2016 Public Policy Forum, this will be a great precursor workshop to prepare you.
All are welcome to join in! Please register in advance by clicking on this link: https://aade.webex.com/aade/advocacy-march2016.
2016 Public Policy Forum
Friday, May 13th – Saturday, May 14th
All Coordinating Body leaders and State Grassroots Coordinators should have received an invitation to our annual Public Policy Forum by now. This is a two-day education and training event that will cover the advocacy initiatives, process for moving legislation forward, strategies for connecting with state and federal legislators, and much more.
If you serve as your CB’s leader or SGC and have not received an invitation, please contact Melissa Akinlawon, AADE Advocacy Coordinator, at makinlawon@aadenet.org.
In addition to these events, we will also conduct various leadership conference calls with specific states that are essential to the progress of our federal legislation. CB leaders and SGCs will receive information regarding those calls at a later date.
Tips for Preparing Grant Requests - Every Piece of the Puzzle Counts
By: Catherine O'Brian, Medical Education Grant Writer and Project Manager
I am the Medical Education Grant Writer and Project Manager at AADE. In serving this position, my grant writing and management expertise is informed by my background in the biomedical sciences and medical writing. In this post, I would like to share with you some tips for successful grant writing.
Assembling a medical education grant request can be compared to putting together the pieces of a puzzle. Here the pieces include a needs assessment, a program plan, a set of learning objectives, defined outcomes, an agenda, and a justified budget. If all of the pieces are provided and meet or exceed the bar of excellence set by the funder, success is likely. On the other hand, if a single piece is viewed as deficient, the grant request may be denied without explanation
It is wise to start the process by visiting the websites of the funders you plan to approach. There you can ascertain whether your topic falls within one of their therapeutic areas of interest and whether they are currently accepting applications for that therapeutic area. Next, it is a good practice to review the website FAQs. For example, the FAQs may indicate that the funder will not allow money budgeted to cover the provision of food at your event. If this conflicts with your plans, you may wish to seek funding elsewhere. Funders typically require that applications be submitted >60 or 90 days before the event; this information is generally provided on their website. Other critical pieces of information available on funder websites are whether unsolicited grant requests are considered and whether funding is restricted to national events.
A logical starting point in drafting the grant request is the needs assessment, because the objective of a proposed medical education activity is to fill the gaps in knowledge and practice identified in the needs assessment. Identifying these gaps in the needs assessment can be done by referencing quality medical literature (recent citations are strongly preferred), by surveying practitioners, and by interviewing thought leaders in the field. Next, learning objectives can be developed; these should be designed to capture whether the gaps in knowledge and practice identified in the needs assessment were filled by the medical education activity. The agenda should clearly delineate the topics that need to be addressed for realization of the learning objectives.
The application should also include a description of how Moore’s level outcomes will be measured. It is important to make sure that the outcomes measurements planned meet the expectation level of the funder. At a minimum, attendance and participant satisfaction (Moore’s Levels 1 and 2 outcomes respectively) should be measured. Take care in creating the budget, because after the activity is completed the budget will need to be reconciled with actual expenditures. In the event that physicians are provided meals or other “transfers of value”, Sunshine Act reporting is required. The program plan serves as an overview of the application and should pull all of the elements together into a cohesive whole. For example, the venue should be a magnet for the target audience of the proposed medical education activity.
If any questions arise as you embark on your next grant writing adventure, please feel free to contact me at cobrian@aadenet.org. I am happy to help!
Membership Help Round-the-Clock with AADE 24/7
What do you do when you’ve signed up for a program, it’s late in the evening or on Sunday afternoon, and you need assistance? We’d love to help, but unfortunately, we can’t always be there.
That’s why we’ve created AADE 24/7: Your Round-the-Clock Solution Center. You can access this feature at any time. Whether you’re just trying to log into your AADE account, update your contact information, or check on your continuing education credits, AADE 24/7 will show you how.
Here, you’ll see a listing of major topics, from Membership to My Password to My Learning. Click the desired general topic and then select a specific question. The step-by-step instructions with screen shots are easy to follow.
If there’s a topic that isn’t available, let us know and we’ll add it to the site.
We always welcome your suggestions. Just email us at membership@aadenet.org.
Peer Reviewers Needed for AADE CE Applications!
AADE is seeking volunteer reviewers for 2016. AADE receives applications for live and self-study continuing professional education activities. The educational content of these conferences is related to diabetes and needs to be reviewed and approved.
Prospective reviewers must meet established qualifications and submit an Application & Professional Expertise Form and a Biographical/COI Disclosure Form. CE Application reviewers may serve a term of one year and may nominate themselves to serve additional term(s).
Involvement as an AADE reviewer adds to your professional development. If you are interested in this volunteer opportunity, visit the AADE Get Involved page and Click “I’m Interested” next to CE Application Reviewer.
Qualifications include:
Nurses Peer Reviewers
- Member of AADE with active status
- Current, valid license as RN and a baccalaureate degree or higher in nursing (or international equivalent)
- Experience in nursing education. Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE) preferred
- Knowledge in contemporary practices and pertinent issues & trends in diabetes care, treatment, research, and education/behavior changes
- Ability to analyze/synthesize information related to meeting the criteria and key elements of ANCC’s educational design by engaging in reviewing the record of an activity to ensure all necessary components are present and compliant with the ANCC Accreditation program when reviewing applications
- Willingness to learn and understand the policies/procedures of the AADE’s Accredited Approver Unit
- Knowledge of the Scope and Standards for Nursing Professional Development
Pharmacist Peer Reviewers
- Member of AADE with active status
- Health discipline professional preparation and credentialing as a Registered Pharmacist (RPh) required
- Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE) preferred
- Knowledge in contemporary practices and pertinent issues/trends in diabetes care, treatment, research, and education/behavior changes
- Experience reviewing continuing education applications and knowledge of specific criteria/standards of ACPE preferred
- Willingness to learn, and consistently apply standards/criteria for continuing education when reviewing applications.
Dietitian Peer Reviewers
- Member of AADE with active status
- Health discipline professional preparation and credentialing as a Registered Dietitian (RD) required
- Certified Diabetes Educator (CDE) preferred
- Knowledge in contemporary practices and pertinent issues/trends in diabetes care, treatment, research, and education/behavior changes
- Experience reviewing continuing education applications and knowledge of specific criteria/standards of CDR preferred
- Willingness to learn, and consistently apply standards/criteria for continuing education specific to nutrition and dietitians when reviewing applications.
Upcoming Events in 2016
CB, LNG and COI Leadership Audio
March 23
John Tyler's presentation,
The New MY AADE NETWORK: Your Guide to Success will give leaders an overview of the key areas on the new AADE website and the enhanced MY AADE NETWORK so that these leaders can utilize these features to increase their members' engagement.
October 19
"Preparing for a Successful Leader Transition" will prepare CB, LNG, and COI leaders in implementing an effective transition process for their incoming leaders.
COI Leader Calls
June 22
This call is intended for all COI leaders and will review the COI Annual Meeting activities and also will include a presentation by Kurt Anderson on the role COI leaders can play in advancing AADE's legislative goals.
September 28
This call is intended for all COI leaders and will feature a presentation on tips for creating blogs.
CB and LNG Briefing Calls
April 6
This call is for State Grassroots Coordinators (SGCs) - details to follow.
May 11
This call is for Membership Leaders - details to follow.
August
Annual Meeting Financial Leader Face to Face Meeting - details to follow.