From July, 1974 to June, 1977, a federally funded project to develop a competency based training program for human service workers was run at Elgin Mental Health Center, a 750-bed inpatient, state psychiatric facility. During the course of the project, over 500 discrete tasks were identified which such workers perform. Tasks were grouped into functional modules and competency (performance based) criteria were developed. A major effort of the project was to develop a training design using these modules, which could be integrated into an existing career ladder. By the end of the project, this objective was accomplished and an evaluation of the project was completed. The evaluation indicated the effectiveness of a competency based approach in delivering training to human service workers. (Author)