CEUs, Training & Conference Support Services

1. Notice to request services: Please provide at least 90 days advance notice to contact us regarding services for your desired training date. You may contact us at any time for general planning questions about our services for CEUs, email marketing and related supports. Use the Services Request Form in the box near the top of the page to request services.

2. Scheduled trainings or conferences: For supports related to scheduled trainings for which you need CEUs and/or email marketing, we need the  following:

    a. Date(s) of training event

    b. Start and end times of the training and the amount of break time

    c. Location of training

    d. What CEUs do you need? if approvable, we can offer NYSED LMSW/LCSW, LMHC, LCAT, LMFT; and/or NYS OASAS.

    e. Fees being charged to attend the training

    f. Trainer's name(s), bio and CV or resume

    g. Training title

    h. Training description with behaviorally stated learning objectives

    i. Target audience

    j. How you will be marketing the training

    k. Any additional information required to meet your unique needs. CEU services require the most information. We can also accommodate conferences and trainings that have multiple presentations.

Please do not send any draft event brochures that include us as the provider of CEU services unless you have entered into an agreement with us, and have been provided with the correct wording and number of CEU hours.

3. Hiring trainers:

• Know what your budget is for hiring a trainer.
• You may hire your own trainer. You will directly negotiate the fee with the trainer. Please note that CEUs can only be provided when the trainer is qualified to meet the CEU regulations for teaching the training topic.
• If you have identified a training topic but do not know of a trainer, we can check our records to see if we know of a local, state, national or international trainer who may be interested and available. However, we do not always know of someone to meet your needs. In these instances, you will need to continue your research to find a trainer.

4. Initial discussions: If you are not certain about what you want to do or how the process works, we are happy to have an initial phone conversation. Please contact Lesa Fichte, LMSW, ACSW, Director of Continuing Education at 716-829-5847 or sw-ce-director@buffalo.edu.

5. Fees: While we do have standard fees as well as customized fees for special service needs, it is easiest to explain the fee structure once we know what you need. 

6. What happens after we decide we want to purchase your services? Once services are selected and there is an agreement on the fees, we create an invoice/task list for you that serves three purposes. It provides an invoice to generate a check or credit card payment for services. It also has a table that specifies what we will do for each of the involved training tasks and what your organization needs to do. This makes it easy to use it as a reference list for ensuring tasks are completed as the training process progresses. When CEU certificates are sent to you for the event, a page of instructions is included and must be followed. Failure to follow these instructions may result in a violation of NYSED rules for which you will be held accountable.

Fees for services will be provided after a discussion of your specific needs. Requests for services to be provided with less than 90 days notice may receive an additional surcharge to accommodate the short time frame.

• From the beginning of our time together to today, Lesa [Fichte] has shown competence, courtesy and kindness.”

Lesa has the ability to understand the current plus future needs of human services agencies, find the trainers and consultants who have the best skills to fill those needs and bring together an educational learning program that benefits the Human Services Agencies, the trainer and the University at Buffalo. As a trainer and consultant I work with many people, and I was a bit hesitant about working with a large university program. But Lesa's ability to organize, connect people, market, promote, edit and proofread then make changes that lead to greater results for all parties has me wanting to do more work with both the University at Buffalo School of Social Work Office of Continuing Education and Lesa. She has a great ability to identify trends and create programs to fill those needs -- that is what impresses me most about her work. From the beginning of our time together to today, Lesa has shown competence, courtesy and kindness. I highly recommend her and her work. - Michael Cardus, founder of Create-Learning Team Building & Leadership, Inc., Buffalo, NY

• “Without the Office of Continuing Education marketing, I would not have had enough participant enrollment for my training. Their professional marketing is key to having a successful workshop!”

-Annie J. Monaco, LCSW-R, Trainer and Psychotherapist, Buffalo, NY

• "Your help was invaluable ... [we] could not be more pleased with the results.”

We wanted to write to you to express our gratitude for the generous assistance you provided Headway, and Elisabeth Mann, in marketing our training on the topic of brain injuries. The response to the training announcement has been gratifying and encouraging, so much that we will be trying to run a second training opportunity in the fall on the same topic. Your help was invaluable, and Elisabeth tells us that you have gone above and beyond in helping her understand how to make this all work ... Headway could not be more pleased with the results. - William Bergmann, executive director, and Diana Landwehr, director of support and advocacy, Headway of Western New York

• "We were particularly impressed and moved by having a facilitator that used some of her own experiences to illustrate how harmful providers can be if they don't recognize trauma."

We knew there was great trauma training out there, but we could not find trauma training that would address homelessness and helping women stabilize in housing. Therefore, we reached out to Lesa Fichte to see if the University at Buffalo would be willing to tailor a training for the YWCA, recognizing that we wanted to improve housing outcomes for women. Lesa and her team developed a comprehensive curriculum that was intended to help housing staff learn skills that would help them become better equipped to recognize trauma, how our environment can exasperate the trauma a woman or child experiences, and how to make simple changes (such as intake practices) to create better relationship building while helping to develop trust. I was very impressed that there were different facilitators for each topic. This meant we had experts with the best knowledge on the topic training us. We were particularly impressed and moved by having a facilitator that used some of her own experiences to illustrate how harmful providers can be if they don't recognize trauma. That testimony made it much more real and really got us to think about how our practices needed a lot of work. The training created the platform for the YWCA to take being trauma-informed to the next level. We are working with women who live at the YWCA to revamp and significantly reduce intake procedures, develop policy, identify measures and quality indicators so we know that we are being trauma-informed, and help us with continuous improvement. We will take the next couple of years to strategically make changes to our physical environment and change the "culture" of the YWCA. We also hope to share our experiences with the community so we can make broader, systemic changes. An example of this would be to help inform our community strategic efforts to create a coordinated response to homelessness so trauma survivors only have to tell their story once. Our staff responded favorably to the training and are actually pointing out examples of things we do that are not trauma-informed. We are learning from our own past experiences and are celebrating when we make informed decision about changing our practices to be more trauma-informed. I would HIGHLY recommend this curriculum for other supportive housing providers. - Carrie Michel-Wynne, director of housing, YWCA Rochester and Monroe County, Rochester, New York