To me she is a role model of what a woman can do with a family. I felt sad when I read that she hid her pregnancy the first two trimesters due to concern over public opinion. As the public, we should be ashamed! do we still expect women to stay home pregnant and barefoot? What century are we in? The media should leave her family alone and let her have her children with her without being attacked and judged by the media. After news report after news report tells us our children are in crisis. Social services have so many reports of abuse and children in the system, children are at risk in their care. Here we have an example of a woman who not only is highly accomplished and a mom, she is a mom of a disabled child.

I love her quote when someone brought up her son’s disability, “Who in this room has a perfect child?” As a parent of a disabled child she is in a great position to continue to cut services that are not producing results and funnel that money into programs that are providing help and support for disabled citizens and their family.

Even if Sarah Palin isn’t our vice-president come November, I hope she continues to be in the public eye to be a role model for families with a disabled child. I hope she finds a place she can do good for the disabled in the US.

First remember that a group home is a HOME first and a place of business second.

To help group home residents know where things go after use your can provide the following:

• Photographs and/or lists of what goes in a cabinet (use the inside of the cabinet door), inside containers, on laundry room shelves, cleaning closets, shelves, etc. If the picture or list can be posted discreetly do so. If not have a book that the group home resident can refer to.

• Have the residents have their own personal care basket with a handle or bag to keep their things in. This is important for sanitary reasons and for financial reasons.

• Have the group home support staff model appropriate organization.

• Organize the group home residents rooms and closets.

• Create routines of getting activity supplies, games, clothes, etc that include keeping things organized. The repetition will help group home residents develop organization skills so they will not need constant prompting.

• Get rid of clutter. Things that aren’t used or their are duplicates of can be given to other group homes that may need the item. It is easier to stay organized if their isn’t a lot of unused stuff to constantly put away.

• Have a shelf or closet for paperwork to be secured and organized. Paperwork will be more likely accurately filled out if organized and easy to find. Use notebooks to organize paperwork so that it is all together for the group home staff to fill out.

Once a group home is organized, if everyone spends a few minutes a shift to keep it organized, there will be less times searching for things and cleaning up messes. Organized group homes allow for more time to spend with the residents.

SOUL, DANCE, AND MOTOWN ARTISTS who have disabilities:

Linda Jones (diabetes)-hit song was “Hypnotized” and both Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight said she was their favorite singer.

Steve Wonder (blind)-had hit songs from the 1960’s to 1986. He is a singer, composer, instrumentalist , and performer.

Mary Well (temporarily paralyzed from spinal meningitis, partially blind, and slight hearing loss)-started out with the Supremes. Continued recording after being diagnosed with throat cancer.

Anastacia (Crones disease)-singer and song writer who is more well-known outside the US. Breast cancer survivor

Aretha Franklin (diabetes)-soul, jazz, rock, blues, pop, and gospel recordings. Grammy Award winner. Hits from 1960’s to the 1980’s

Kenny G (asthma)-saxophonist, inspired to play while watching the Ed Sullivan show

Phyllis Hyman (bi-polar)-vocalist and actress, supported AIDS causes (committed suicide)

Michael Jackson (skin pigment disorder)-started with the Jackson 5 as a child, hits from the 1960’s to the 21st century.

Curtis Mayfield (paralyzed from an accident)-after his accident he continued to record, his album “New World Order” was recorded one line at a time.

Famous People with Disabilities-part one

When in the community, and a group home resident goes about doing things in a “different” way and then notices that someone may be looking, he or she can speak up and say something like “I have CP and it takes me a little longer, but I can do it myself”. It puts a face to the label-CP. It focuses on ABILITY in the label-disability.

Group home providers and day programs can even create a little course to train the residents who are interested in becoming a disability ambassador. A printed out card, button, and even t-shirts (”Proud Person with CP”, “I am a disability awareness ambassador”, or “Ask me about CP”) can give credibility to their title.

We have moved away from the time of hiding people with disabilities in institutions, now it’s time to move forward and stop hiding them out in the open when in the community. There is the fear they will be treated differently if their disability is revealed. Maybe we have created that fact by trying to hide their disability and preventing the community from having the opportunity to learn about the

REMEMBER-never break confidentiality and reveal a group home’s resident’s disability in the community unless you have their permission.

Most residents won’t do this on their ownA group home support staff can begin to teach a resident to teach others about acceptance.

I will use an example of how I had helped a young man who had trouble learning. He didn’t seem to be getting much out of the hours he spent in school. He struggled with a couple basic skills-reading and counting money.

First thing I did is try to figure out “how” he processed information. I observed him doing things he normally does around the house:

• Cooking
• Cleaning (or avoiding cleaning)
• Helping

I saw that the following contributed to him being successful with a task:

• It was broke down in small manageable steps
• He was shown what to do
• There was overseeing, encouragement, and instruction during the task
• He was self-motivated

I built his self-confidence:

• He was interested in who worked each day, so I used the posted schedule and we worked on reading. He got lots of positive reinforcement.  I would ask him who worked and he gained confidence because HE had the answer instead of being dependent on the group home staff to tell him.
• With his weekly spending money we would use real money to show equivalents. I had laid next to each other the following: a dollar, four quarters, and 10 dimes and told him it was the same amount. I loved the look in his eyes when he “got it”.

Taught him how to teach

• Referred to the above learning experiences and reminded him how he smart he is.
• Explained to him that he learned best by doing and using what he learned.
• We talked about how not everyone will know how to teach him what he wants to learn, but he can teach people how to teach him.
• I then gave him some suggestions on how to help others to teach him, like “I’m smart and can learn this if you show me how it is done.”

I wasn’t able to work with him long enough to find out if he was learning more at school. I had found it sad that he spent so much time at school and wasn’t getting basic skills for independence even though I saw he had the potential. In the group home he was more interested in learning new things.

Here is a video

Here is more information if you want to participate

The reasons this is important:

• Used to develop behavior treatment plans
• Provide history and information regarding behaviors
• Required for monitoring residents who are receiving certain medications
• Evaluates effectiveness of plan
• Effects group home residents quality of life
• Track progress or lack of progress

Group home support staff should check for the following when filling out behavior health data sheets:

• Name is printed with initials for reference
• Data is on correct day
• Numbers are easy to read (close “0″’s so they doesn’t look like a 6 or 8 and close “9″’s so they don’t look like a 4)
• All spaces are filled in
• Initials are in appropriate spaces
• Notes are written regarding behaviors as needed
• Totals are correct

With accurate information on behavior health data sheets, the group home residents can get behavior treatment plans that will effectively help them to reach their goals.

• Outings
• Groceries
• Vacations
• Household items

The post has some good suggestions for planning shopping. Some clients don’t do well on long shopping trips even if it does save the house some money. Ways to save help group home residents tolerate longer trips:

• Plan something that they enjoy at the end of the trip
• Bring snacks and drinks
• Stop at a park in between stores
• Have extra staff to occupy residents who don’t like to shop while staff and resident who enjoys shopping shop
• Do shopping near where resident is picked up from DTA (day treatment activity) or work program
• If residents don’t tolerate shopping, shop without residents after transport to DTA or work program

Planning trips with residents tolerance levels in mind can reduce the mileage driven by the group home vehicle and it will in turn reduce gas expenses.

Background:

At the Wal-mart that I work at there are several customers that are in wheel chairs that come in regularly that we as associates are familiar with. Some we haave gotten to know because they need help and others we have gotten to know because of their friendliness.

There is an amazing man with Cerable Palsy. He is unable to speak and has very limited fine motor function and uses his head rest to control his motorized wheelchair. He is a brave and determined soul who comes shopping alone with a note taped to his wheel chair so where he goes, he can get help shopping for the items he needs. Even if I don’t help him, I usually go and say hello. Since I have worked in group homes for so long, I have no problem offering to wipe his face since he tends to have some drool and is unable to wipe his own face. He is an inspiring man to me because he is not afraid to drive his wheel chair alone to the stores and to shop.

Do Gooder Gone Bad

This gentleman was in the McDonalds eating ice cream. A woman came up and saw a bump on his head. She immediately ASSUMED that he had been assaulted. She asked him if he was OK and where was his wallet. (Keep in mind, he was just sitting there eating ice cream, not giving any indication of needing help.) She then proceeded to go through his backpack looking for his wallet and now she ASSUMED that he had his wallet stolen because she couldn’t find it in his backpack (he does not keep it there). He became very upset with this stranger direspectfully rummaging through his stuff and tried to get away from her. Headrest controls aren’t real easy to use anyways, and being so upset, his movement in the wheel chair wasn’t as controled as it usually is. She persisted and he communicated to her the best he could which included loud noises and large motions with his arms and legs, because of the severity of his Cerable Palsy he is unable to speak. Now this woman ASSUMED he was having a siezure and wanted 911 called! By this time there was several managers and associates gathered around trying to explain to the woman that he comes in all the time and he’s fine and she just needs to leave him alone. She went so far as to threaten lawsuits because Wal-mart didn’t provide medical attention for his “siezure”. I guess finally the lady backed off and he was allowed to get away from the entire situation. It would be almost comical if it weren’t a true story.

I hope this doesn’t affect him going shopping alone. I wasn’t there, but if I was, I would’ve contacted the group home so that they would be aware of what had happened and helped him to deal with it. My guess is that since he has such a brave and determined nature, it won’t slow him down and he will continue with the highest level of independence he is capable of.

Here is a video that shows how to clean a microwave.