Consumer/Participant Direction

This booklet was created by the Montana Choice program for people who are either receiving personal assistance services in their home or those persons who deliver personal assistance services in the home setting. The content focuses on the relationship between the personal assistant and the consumer. The booklet is divided into two sections: What is Personal Assistance and Am I a Good Personal Assistant?

This tool is designed to equip consumers with the tools necessary to develop a job description, to screen and interview potential employers (personal assistants), and to train new personal assistants as well as address consumers physical needs, leisure and community needs. There are over 30 checklist forms to help determine need. This publication was produced by the Tennessee Personal Assistance Supports and Services (PASS) program.

The Tennessee Personal Assistance Supports and Services program developed this comprehensive guide to assist individuals in self-direction. The guide provides people with disabilities the information and tools needed to hire and manage a Personal Assistant. The guide discusses the differences between hiring individually or through an agency, how to process a self-assessment, offers job descriptions and performance expectations, and other checklists.

Through the Tennessee Personal Assistance Supports and Services (PASS) Program, people with disabilities will have the opportunity to self-direct the care and assistance they receive in order to live full, productive lives in their own homes and communities. This guide is designed as a handbook for agencies and mentors and offers practical information about the benefits of the mentoring process, describes roles, and offers training guidelines.

HCBS.org News CLIPS highlights the important work of Real Choice Systems Change Grantees. In this issue, we have interviewed 3 grantees (Tracy Warren from Idaho, Abby Hulme from Montana and Diane King from Colorado) to discuss the implementation of their Independence Plus Programs. Learn more about outreach and enrollment techniques, consumer involvement, on-line training tools, peer consultants, and improving emergency back up procedures.

This report describes grant activities in three major LTC systems areas: Access to Long-Term Care Services and Supports, Services, Supports, and Housing, Administrative and Monitoring Infrastructure. For each of the focus areas the report describes Grantees’ accomplishments, illustrates the challenges and discusses the consumers’ role in the implementation and evaluation of activities. The report uses information provided during the reporting period October 1, 2004 to September 30, 2005.

In many ways, consumers are the best experts on their disabling conditions, including their own needs for support and the effectiveness and quality of programs. As a result, obtaining consumer participation and input at all stages of program design, implementation, evaluation and quality assurance is important. Effectively and efficiently involving consumers and obtaining their input, however, requires creative and innovative methods. This checklist will help to enhance full participation.

This report assesses the appeal of the Cash and Counseling demonstration by: (1) estimating the proportions of eligible beneficiaries that participated and comparing the characteristics of participants and nonparticipants; (2) describing beneficiaries’ most common reasons for agreeing or declining to participate; and (3) examining whether the demonstration affected the number of beneficiaries accessing personal care services or home and community-based services over time.

Assessing the well-being of workers hired under consumer direction and addressing their concerns is critical, because the model is sustainable only if workers are satisfied. While care recipients who manage their own care appear to be much more satisfied than others, the primary reason given for dropping out is difficulty finding or keeping a worker. Moreover, tapping consumers’ family members and friends as additional sources of labor could help solve the serious worker shortage.

The new consumer-directed Medicaid program in Montana, Big Sky Bonanza (BSB) program has created the following products provided to new enrollees. The Waiver Orientation manual contains a program overview, roles and responsibilities and training process. My Support Services Plan is an 18 page worksheet to help consumers develop goal statements, capture personal, health, and spending plan, create an emergency back-up plan and list medical information.