Posted on December 17, 2024

By Mary Kay Rizzolo, CQL President & CEO

Yes, it’s that time of the year! Every December we dedicate the final edition of Capstone to looking back on just some of the highlights we’ve had here at CQL. The end of the year presents a perfect opportunity to recognize and celebrate your organization’s accomplishments and milestones. In this Capstone, you can join us in this journey of reflecting on various memorable moments from 2024, and access a bunch of resources we released throughout the year that you may have missed!

January

More Tools In Your POM Toolbox

As you’re likely aware, the Personal Outcome Measures® (POM) is our flagship tool. So it was especially fitting to kick off the year with some great POM resources. These included the annual POM Benchmarks Report, the POM In Pictures Guide: Adults, the POM In Pictures Guide: Children and Youth, and sessions in the POM Fundamentals Webinar Series. These tools, along with many others from our archive, were pulled together in the January 2024 Capstone, POM Resources: Latest Releases And Long-Time Favorites.

February

Research, Research, Research

CQL is known for its research. Dr. Carli Friedman, CQL’s Director of Research, authors many research articles every year, with a dozen articles in 2024 alone. The most-viewed article of the year was released in February, titled Many Disability Professionals Don’t Understand Ableism. This all adds up to why Dr. Friedman was included on the 2024 ‘World’s Top 2% Scientists’ list, which is calculated by Stanford University.

March

Deep Dive Into Accreditation

We continued our ongoing Accreditation Webinar Series, with the first session of 2024 presented in March. For the 2024 Accreditation Webinar Series, there were more than 900 registrants who were able to learn about writing accreditation plans, unleashing creativity when it comes to accreditation, building organizational systems, and more.

April

Sharing Best Practices Through Capstone

Our monthly Capstone articles take an in-depth look at issues that are important in the field, with practical tips, relevant resources, and expert insight to improve services. One of the most popular editions in 2024 was released in April, titled Sparking Organizational Change Through Data. Capstone continues to be a valuable resource, with the 2024 editions having more than 5,500 views on our website.

May

“Definitely Not A Conference”

On May 30, 2024, CQL hosted its first-ever 2024 CQL Un-Conference: Roadmap To A Good Life. This one-day event in Fishers, Indiana, welcomed 100 participants spanning 5 states, with Liberty Healthcare Corporation as the exclusive sponsor and Opportunities for Positive Growth, Inc. (OPG) as our partner in the event.

The day was packed full of micro-sessions, facilitated discussions, activities, a panel presentation, and networking opportunities. Through the interactive format, we maximized engagement among attendees to spread best practices for supporting people to have a ‘good life.’

June

The Launch Of Our Annual DSP Campaign

Every year, we partner with NADSP to share organizational programs that make a meaningful, long-lasting, and positive impact on the important work and lives of direct support professionals (DSPs). We launched our 2024 campaign in June and went on to publish 7 articles covering issues like professional development, career advancement, leveraging DSP feedback, and more. Since launching the initiative, we’ve featured 40+ programs created by dozens of different organizations across 14 states and provinces.

July

New Team Members & New Positions

In order to be responsive to the growth and expansion of CQL services, in July we brought on new staff members to join our team:

• Nikki Anderson, Full-Time Quality Enhancement Specialist
• Brittany Brashaw, Full-Time Quality Enhancement Specialist
• Libby Israel, Part-Time Quality Enhancement Specialist

Along with the new hires, we had some existing CQL staff take on new roles in 2024. Rebecca Kasey became CQL’s Director of Personal Outcome Measures® and Lindsey Moore became our Project Coordinator. If you want to learn more about CQL staff, you can visit the Our Team webpage, and get to know us better through our Staff Spotlight articles.

August

Happy Anniversary To Our Free Webinar Initiative

This past August marked the one-year anniversary of launching our Free Webinar Initiative, which allows state governmental agencies and state/national associations to sponsor free webinars presented by CQL. To date, we’ve held more than 50 webinars for groups across 13 states, welcoming thousands of registrants.

September

A Busy Year For Conferences

CQL was a proud co-sponsor of the biennial Reinventing Quality Conference in September 2024. Along with being a co-sponsor, CQL had the honor of presenting in 3 sessions, as well as exhibiting at the event.

Beyond the Reinventing Quality Conference, we were involved in a lot of other events throughout the year, whether it was presenting, exhibiting, sponsoring, or a combination of those. We participated in more than 10 different events located in 9 states across the country.

October

Focusing On Employment

During National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM) in October, CQL shared a lot of resources to help organizations. In October, we released a Capstone article titled Solutions, Tips, And Resources To Improve Employment Outcomes. We also sent out an NDEAM kick-off email listing numerous articles, research, webinars, and other tools to assist agencies. Throughout the month, we also posted data snippets and different resources related to employment, on Facebook and LinkedIn.

November

‘Go The Distance!’ With Us In 2025

There was a very exciting announcement in November! We released the save-the-date and the theme for our next big event, the 2025 CQL Conference: Go The Distance! It will take place in-person, in Philadelphia, PA from Monday 10/13/25 – Thursday 10/16/25. Early next year, we’ll begin releasing more details about the event involving registration, keynote speakers, breakout presentation proposals, sponsorship and exhibiting, and the CQL Awards of Excellence.

December

A Celebration Of Organizational Success

We love showcasing our partners! Throughout the year, we highlight various organizations that we work with. In these success story articles, we profile different accredited agencies from around the world and then they provide insight into their organization, their experiences with accreditation, and more. From January through December, we featured 5 partner organizations:

• Ray Graham Association
• Advanced Health Resources/Touchstone Residential Services
• Open Door Center
• The Arc Of Atlantic County
• Horizon House of Illinois Valley, Inc.

Looking Ahead to 2025

We want to take this moment to thank all of our partners for joining us in the pursuit of our organizational vision – “a world of dignity, opportunity, and community for all people.” With all of the challenges facing the disability services sector, it gives us hope and optimism that we can always come together, collaborate, and support each other in this journey of ongoing organizational transformation. We truly could not do our work without each and every one of you! In looking ahead to 2025, we’re excited for another year of partnering with you all to help improve the quality of life and quality of supports for people receiving services.