Friday, May 30, 2014
Thank You
My SNAP Curriculum is now being used by agencies in 46 states (and 3 other countries). Only missing Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Vermont and New Hampshire. It is extremely satisfying to me that so many people across the country (and world) are actively looking for ways to improve their service to adults with developmental disabilities.
It is so easy to slip into the trap of just providing a "sitting service" to the people we support and forgetting why we are there. This is a hard job. It isn't like we see leaps and bounds of improvement in our clients, and we are not going to "cure" anybody of anything.You work with the same clients day after day, not seeing outright improvement, and it's easy to mentally give up. But my resource book sales are telling me that there are many agencies who are not giving up! Good for you.
The curriculum is a tool for staff to use to engage adults with developmental disabilities in a conversation/discussion of a wide variety of daily living topics. It's difficult to think about the things that we take for granted... that's why we take them for granted. It's especially hard for brand new staff to know what issues our clients face on a daily basis and then have a clue how to start a conversation about the topic with a person who might not learn the same way we do.
It is so easy to slip into the trap of just providing a "sitting service" to the people we support and forgetting why we are there. This is a hard job. It isn't like we see leaps and bounds of improvement in our clients, and we are not going to "cure" anybody of anything.You work with the same clients day after day, not seeing outright improvement, and it's easy to mentally give up. But my resource book sales are telling me that there are many agencies who are not giving up! Good for you.
The curriculum is a tool for staff to use to engage adults with developmental disabilities in a conversation/discussion of a wide variety of daily living topics. It's difficult to think about the things that we take for granted... that's why we take them for granted. It's especially hard for brand new staff to know what issues our clients face on a daily basis and then have a clue how to start a conversation about the topic with a person who might not learn the same way we do.
Thursday, May 08, 2014
Bad Behaviors
I was just looking over the Customizable Staff Orientation that I sell, and I thought this was an interesting piece. It has to do with "bad behaviors". There is often a tendency among new staff members to immediately attempt to stop "bad behaviors". Please consider that all behavior is a form of communication. How does the person communicate if you stop their behavior?
That does NOT mean that you can't protect yourself or others in the case of assaultive behaviors. We're talking a little more long term, here.
What do you want?
I want Jimmy to stop yelling.
What do you want him to do?
I just told you, I want him to stop yelling.
No, that's what you want him to stop doing. What do you want him to do instead?
I want him to tell me what's wrong.
How can he do that?
Maybe he can learn to point to what he wants instead of just yelling at the top of his lungs.
There you go.
Typical Types of Behavior We Deal With
Actual
physical assaultive behaviors are rare. We usually deal with manipulators who
have gotten through life by finding ways to get other people to do things for
them. Very often, they have been taught
that others should do things for them. We are not looking for compliance or for
the easiest way for us to get through the day… we are looking to teach clients
to be assertive and do things for themselves as much as possible. We deal with
a lot of communication issues – people who are non-verbal or who are verbal but
don’t have the skills to tell you what they want or don’t want, so they go in
the bathroom and stay there for an hour.
Always
remember that your job is not to “stop a bad behavior.” Your job is to discover
the communicative intent of a behavior, acknowledge that intent, discover a
socially acceptable replacement behavior that allows them to still communicate
their needs, and find a way to teach them that behavior.
Remember,
too, that you are constantly modeling behavior. Horseplay and play-fighting are
two things some clients have difficulty distinguishing appropriate times for.
Therefore, we strongly discourage these behaviors by staff.
