Group Homes for the Disabled

Kelly Cole's Personal Experience

I have worked in group home for the disabled for over two years. I worked as a contractor providing Occupational Therapy to mentally handicap adults. I have seen some good work being done on the part of the disabled adult. I have also seen the side of people you worry about when you place your loved one in a group home. The aides make a world of difference to your loved one. So that would mean the more training an aide has the better off your loved one will be. However the structure of the training pyramid is  to train the managers and higher level supervisors, then have them train the aides. This is a common practice. However, it does have its flaws. But we will get back to that.

The group homes were a solution to Willow Brook Psychiatric facility. Bringing the Disabled out into the community instead of gathering them all into one place. Millions of dollars was spent to ensure the health and safety of the less fortunate in our society. They would be placed in housing in communities and have them cared for by state and federal funded programs. 

A house normally consists of a house manager, an assistant house manager, shift supervisors and staff. The care is to be round the clock. The house manager and assistant have normal office hours for the most part. The shift supervisor has the assigned shifts and the staff also have their assigned times. There is generally one overnight staff that is not allowed to sleep. The overnight staff is to clean, do prep work or other activities. (most watch TV)

During the day the residents of the house normally go to a place called Day Hab or some (based on their abilities) go to a special work site. The staff normally arrives in the morning to relieve the overnight staff and get the residents ready for the placements for the day. Once the residents leave the staff leaves except for the managers and/or the assistant manager. They take care of paperwork, ordering, check logs, etc.

After the residents are done with their placements they come home to new staff who get them ready for dinner, activities, then bed. The cycle repeats itself Monday through Friday. On Saturday and Sunday they either have outings planned or they stay at the house with staff.

For the most part the residents are watched twenty four hours a day seven days a week. That is what is required because most of the residents of these homes have safety issues. Most residents can not take care of themselves on a day to day basis. Some or most have hygiene issues, taking a shower, brushing their teeth, wiping etc. It is up to the staff to see that these particular activities are done on a daily basis.

Remember the flaws we talked about, well here they are. Since the staff have to rely on the training from the supervisors and they don't attend classes the information passed on is subjective or not always complete. The education of the staff is to train them how to teach or guide the residents through the individual activities. Not take over the activity.

Too many times I have seen staff doing activities of daily living the residents should be doing themselves with supervision or assistance. I had one residence manager ask me about one of the residence losing her ability to dress herself. "She used to gather her own cloths and put them on - now she just stands there and waits to be dressed." It was not because she suddenly became physically unable to do it either. It was a great concern because all the years that it took her to learn to complete that task independently was gone. It had been quicker and easier for the staff to gather the clothing and dress her then for her to do it herself. The resident had to catch a bus to get to Day Hab and she took a long time to get dressed. The bus was on a time schedule, it couldn't wait. Now the resident had to be taught to do it all over again. She still had the skill to do the steps but she had learned that the staff would do it for her, so why should she.

The resident needed to be positively reinforced to motivate herself to take over doing for herself again. The was one of the downfalls of Willow Brook -learned helplessness. The responsibility of the aides is not to do for the residents but to keep them safe when they are doing for themselves.

I do have more stories regarding this I will continue to provide more. Thanks for reading. If you want to respond go to blog and post comments or email me.  kellycole@advocatesquest.com

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