Workbooks

The Arkansas IndependentChoices program developed two new tools. The Consumer-Directed training manual will provide users with ideas and suggestions on hiring, training, and managing a personal care attendant. The Personal Care Attendant handbook will provide users with training material that will help trainees do their job as a personal care attendant. Both manuals contain information about hiring, communication and management issues.

Colorado Real Choice Quality grantees designed this worksheet to guide clients as they \"shop around\" for the best provider agency to meet their needs. The worksheet suggests questions and criteria to use in evaluating agency services from a consumer perspective.

The Missouri Independence Plus Grantees have developed a number of tools during the implementation of their consumer-directed program aimed at helping people with disabilities. Review the 7 participant workbooks titles include Designing Supports, Financial Management, Individual Budget, Orientation & Overview, Person Centered Planning, Support Broker, Self-Determination. Visit their website and view the program brochure for additional information.

The Shawnee County CDDO is pleased to present the Kansas Personal Assistance Supports and Services (K-PASS) Self-Direction Toolkit. The purpose is to provide people with disabilities the information and tools they need to hire and manage their personal assistant supports and services. The toolkit includes such items as job descriptions, training information, emergency back-up plans and other useful resources.

Why is evaluation useful? How do you conduct a practical evaluation without straining resources? How can a program integrate evaluation activities into a project so that they become an asset rather than a burden? The answers to these questions and additional resources can be found in Volume 4 of the Community Living Brief.

The Pre-SOAR (SSI/SSDI Outreach, Access, and Recovery) Data Form will be used by Oregon to capture, evaluate and report outcomes for the SOAR Technical Assistance project. The purpose is to monitor improvement, as a result of SOAR training, in accessing SSI and SSDI benefits for eligible people disabled by mental illness.

The Granite State Independent Living (GSIL) program has developed two great resources offered to providers of personal care and homemaking services. This employee handbook is intended to serve as a guideline, describing the policies and procedures of GSIL’s two Attendant Care Programs, the Personal Care Attendant (PCA) Program and the Personal Care Services (PCS) Program for consumers and employees. The Skills Training notebook offers agency information and various policies.

As part of a 2004 QA/QI grant, New Hampshire developed this procedure that established the required components and reporting expectations by providers regarding sentinel events within the state's E/D waiver. Review the protocol and sample form that support quality assurance activities.

How do Information and Referral Centers establish guidelines for inclusion in, and exclusion from, their resource databases? This overview from the National Aging I&R Support Center with permission from Information and Referral: The Journal of the Alliance of Information and Referral Systems discusses the need for formal criteria. Sample inclusion/exclusion criteria are appended.

The Florida Department of Elder Affairs has set forth inclusion and exclusion guidelines for the integrated statewide information and referral database. This database will serve as a single point of access for information, counseling, referrals, assessment and eligibility functions, which will maximize consumer choice. The database includes entities that serve both Florida’s elders and their families, and adults suffering from severe and persistent mental illness.