Six Sigma for Non-Profit Organizations

Although non-profit organizations, such as healthcare, education, recreation, welfare, religious and culture agencies rarely think of themselves as business, they share a lot of traits with for-profit businesses. They must attract customers, must generate and manage income, manage staff, buildings, machinery, and provide services that the customer desires. There has been recognition in the world for the need for quality management practices in non-profit organizations. The United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Austria, the Netherlands, Asia and Eastern Europe all have quality awards for non-profit agencies. The guidelines for the Baldrige National Award in the United States are very similar to the quality awards for non-profits throughout the world. Six Sigma tools were chosen for use with Midwestern Church (not real name) in preference to ISO9001 and the Baldrige criteria. The desire was to start with a small project in which there was a good chance for success in hopes that future projects would be attempted. ISO9001 and the Baldrige criteria were too large of a scope for an organization without an initial quality management system. A team of support staff at Midwestern Church chose inter-staff communications as their improvement project. When the communication process was mapped, it was found that e-mail was the main method of communication and business was rarely discussed at staff meetings, rather Bible study occurred. Three improvements were suggested: Time deadlines were added in the subject lines of e-mails of the team members MicroSoft Outlook training to optimize the e-mail system was offered to all staff members Staff meetings were structured to discuss business The first two improvements were partially implemented and slight improvements in communications were made among the team members as a result. Because there was little support from upper management (clergy), there was limited success in the first two improvements and the third was never implemented. Despite this it is believed that the project was successful. Some staff members who were not part of the first training have requested and received Outlook training. Two focus group using techniques similar to those used in this project are being formed to obtain attendee (customer) input concerning worship services that are losing attendance

Referring to psychological therapy services in Secondary NHS Mental Health Services – how do mental health care professionals decide?

Purpose Evidence-based psychological therapies are available for severe and enduring mental health problems, but resources and access to these are limited within England. Practitioners in community mental health teams (CMHTs) can act as gatekeepers for access to psychological therapies for those in secondary care, but little is known about how they make referral decisions. This paper aims to understand how CMHT practitioners make decisions about who to refer or not, to secondary care psychological therapy services (PTS). Design/methodology/approach A total of 11 CMHT practitioners were interviewed to understand the decision making processes underpinning their referrals or otherwise, to a PTS within NHS England. The data were analysed qualitatively using thematic analysis. Findings Thematic analysis resulted in 11 sub-themes under three main themes of the self, the organisation and wider structure and the service user. Results indicated that some participants were referred automatically for psychological therapy if a service user asked or if there was external pressure to refer, while others’ decisions were informed by contextual information such as the service user’s ability to engage or change, risk status and limited organisational resources. Originality/value This study explores the decision making of multi-disciplinary professionals referring to PTS. The findings have important implications for understanding some of the factors that can influence patient access to psychological treatment in secondary care

Bark beetles, Pseudohylesinus spp. (Coleoptera: Scolytidae), associated with amabilis fir defoliated by Neodiprion sp. (Hymenoptera: Diprionidae)

Only Abies amabilis (Dougl.) Forbes heavily defoliated by a sawfly, Neodiprion sp., supported broods of Pseudohylesinus spp.. Although many trees with less defoliation showed evidence of attack, usually it was caused by adult beetles making overwintering niches. P. granulatus (Leconte) was found on the lower bole, whereas P. grandis Swaine and P. nobilis Swaine were found on the upper bole. Defoliated Tsuga heterophylla (Raf.) Sarg. were not attacked by bark beetles

Effects of dopamine D1 modulation of the anterior cingulate cortex in a fear conditioning procedure

The anterior cingulate cortex (AC) component of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) has been implicated in attention and working memory as measured by trace conditioning. Since dopamine (DA) is a key modulator of mPFC function, the present study evaluated the role of DA receptor agents in rat AC, using trace fear conditioning. A conditioned stimulus (CS, noise) was followed by an unconditioned stimulus (US, shock) with or without a 10s trace interval interposed between these events in a between-subjects design. Conditioned suppression of drinking was assessed in response to presentation of the CS or an experimental background stimulus (flashing lights, previously presented for the duration of the conditioning session). The selective D1 agonist SKF81297 (0.05 µg/side) or D1 antagonist SCH23390 (0.5 µg/side) was administered by intra-cerebral microinfusion directly into AC. It was predicted that either of these manipulations should be sufficient to impair trace (but not delay) conditioning. Counter to expectation, there was no effect of DA D1 modulation on trace conditioning as measured by suppression to the noise CS. However, rats infused with SKF81297 acquired stronger conditioned suppression to the experimental background stimulus than those infused with SCH23390 or saline. Thus, the DA D1 agonist SKF81297 increased conditioned suppression to the contextual background light stimulus but was otherwise without effect on fear conditioning

Mapping Morality with a Compass: Testing the theory of ‘morality as cooperation’ with a new questionnaire

Morality-as-Cooperation (MAC) is the theory that morality is a collection of biological and cultural solutions to the problems of cooperation recurrent in human social life. MAC uses game theory to identify distinct types of cooperation, and predicts that each will be considered morally relevant, and each will give rise to a distinct moral domain. Here we test MAC's predictions by developing a new self-report measure of morality, the Morality-as-Cooperation Questionnaire (MAC-Q), and comparing its psychometric properties to those of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (MFQ). Over four studies, the results support MAC's seven-factor model of morality, but not the MFQ's five-factor model. Thus MAC emerges as the best available compass with which to explore the moral landscape