Cash and Counseling

Find useful tools to help you advocate for participant-directed services. This toolkit offers a “Budget Myths Chart” highlighting common myths, counter-arguments, and important facts to make your case, and other helpful tools including personal stories, reports on involving program participants, and tips and examples of opinion articles suggested by policymakers and advocates.

New job descriptions and titles are being developed to focus on the needs of individuals for activities such as support coordination, brokerage and personal resource management. This report helps to define the concept of “support brokerage” as it relates to persons with developmental disabilities. It addresses issues such as conflicting interests, self determination and structural requirements.

To inform long-term care reform efforts, a web-based survey of over 1,000 LTC specialists nationwide was conducted. Findings included the need for LTC to be rebalanced toward HCBS settings, though few supported doing so by limiting nursing home bed supply. Although virtually all felt that the federal government was doing a poor job regulating LTC providers, most believed that the approaches used to oversee nursing homes should also be applied to assisted living.

The NRCPDS is seeking information to determine which innovative ideas beyond the basic service model (Cash & Counseling) offers sufficient promise to be funded as 18 month Innovation Grants. Priority categories are: 1) Managed Care and PD, 2) Agency with Choice PD, and 3) Peer to Peer Support Models in PD. Applicants with another category that they consider an innovative advancement to a C&C program model are also invited to apply. Due date is July 1, 2010.

Explore innovative initiatives from across the nation offering alternatives for reforming the delivery of Medicaid-funded long-term care. This report includes both innovations that have been implemented as well as promising practices. Innovations included cover provider-focused initiatives, new directions for managed long-term care, administrative and financing solutions; and emerging telehealth technologies.

What is the net fiscal impact of the IHSS Program on the public sector? The program, which is available to low-income elderly and disabled persons, provides services to recipients in their own homes and can enhance quality of life by making it easier to live at home. This report concludes that the state maximizes its net fiscal impact by targeting IHSS services to those recipients who are most likely to enter a nursing home in the absence of the program.

What role can community colleges play in supporting initiatives to improve the quality of in-home care? The Caregiving Training Institute was created to support a wide range of training programs at Community Colleges. This brief provides an overview of the trend toward in-home services, highlights the importance of well-trained caregivers, and discusses the unique role community colleges can play in this arena.

View two screening tools developed for Rhode Island’s PersonalChoice program. The PersonalChoice Participant Self-Assessment is designed to assess whether the applicant possesses the ability to self-Direct and manage his or her own care. The representative screen details requirements for the role and includes screening questions. These forms can serve as templates for other states developing similar participant-directed initiatives.

View two forms developed for Rhode Island’s PersonalChoice program. One lists the participant’s rights and responsibilities, and the other is a designation form authorizing a representative to serve the participant. These forms can serve as templates for other states developing similar participant-directed initiatives.

Find helpful documents developed for the PersonalChoice program. Included are a flowchart of the referral/intake/enrollment process, Advisement Agency Certification Standards, a Training Manual and Quick Start Guide designed to give participants an overview of the program and their roles and responsibilities (including information on service and spending plans, communication tips, and information about working with PersonalChoice support agencies), and a Spending Plan template.