WAPADH's Housing Services Blog

On the Horizon

WAPADH Housing Services — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:45:47 +0000

Today, the last day of 2009, brings with it different emotions at the somber knowledge of what is no more and the infinite possibilities of what lies ahead. Without a doubt, this was a unique year for Supported Living Services. We found ourselves stepping outside of the box, so to speak and pushing new boundaries. We began the year by providing services outside of our traditional geographic area. Although this was something completely new for us, it was a challenge we were willing to explore. We found ourselves, of all places, providing services at Santa Monica College. Although this experience was outside of the traditional supported living structure and only temporary, it was a unique way of not only looking at the current structure of our services, but also as a way to expand on them as well.

So, what’s on the horizon for Supported Living Services in 2010? We are ending our year much like how it began, providing services outside of our geographic area. For the past two months, we have been providing Supported Living Services in Rancho Santa Margarita, CA. So far, it has been a unique experience, and I can say with certainty that we are looking forward to seeing how our services expand in Orange County in 2010 and beyond. We are also at the beginning stages of increasing our numbers as well. For the past four months, we have been conducting assessments for individuals interested in receiving supported living services from WAPADH. Supported Living Services at WAPADH is becoming known more and more outside of our geographical area. Needless to say, I expect this trend to continue and anticipate a year of further growth at Supported Living Services.

As the curtain to the year draws a close in just a few hours, I want to thank you for all your support throughout the year, and I want to wish you a Happy and Prosperous Year in 2010! Let’s make 2010 an even better year for WAPADH’s services!

IHSS

WAPADH Housing Services — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:26:14 +0000

As you may already know, recent changes to California’s budget have caused some changes in State law that may affect you.

In these hard fiscal times is had been essential for government to focus resources and increase attention to accountability and fraud prevention. The Budget Act included reforms to significantly strengthen efforts to reduce and prevent fraud in this fast-growing program. Specific reform measures include:

Implementation of rigorous anti-fraud efforts that require: 1.) all providers (current and new applicants) to attend an orientation and be fingerprinted during 2009-2010, 2.) IHSS recipients to be fingerprinted, 3.) timesheets to be signed under a statement acknowledging that false timesheets and subject to civil penalties, and 4.) fingerprinting of both the recipient and provider on timecards. In addition, this reform component would generally disallow provider checks from being sent to post office box addresses, and would authorize case reviews, targeted mailings, and unannounced home visits.

In order to promote program integrity within IHSS, effective immediately, recipients may be subject to unannounced home visits from the county, the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) Audits and Investigations staff, and/or the California Department of Social Services (CDSS). Recipients and/or providers may also receive letters identifying program requirement concerns from DHCS, CDSS, and/or the county.

The purpose of the visits and letters is to ensure that program requirements are being followed and that the authorized services are necessary for you to remain safely in your home. The visit will also verify that the authorized services are being provided, the quality of those services is acceptable, and that your well-being is protected.

FAQs

WAPADH Housing Services — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 03:01:23 +0000

Frequently asked questions (FAQs) are listed questions and answers, all supposed to be frequently asked in some context, and pertaining to a particular topic. Depending on usage, the term may refer specifically to a single frequently asked question, or to an assembled list of many questions and their answers. Here is a list of FAQs considered for WAPADH’s Housing Services section:

1 WAPADH’s Housing Services Background

1.1 What is a consumer?
1.2 What is the Lanterman Act
1.3 What are Regional Centers?
1.4 What services does a Supported Living agency provide? What services doesn’t a Supported Living agency provide?
1.5 What is Title 17?
1.6 How is SLS funded?
1.7 What are Independent Living Services (ILS)?
1.8 What is the difference between ILS and SLS?
1.9 Do I need to have ILS before I can receive SLS?
1.10 Are Supported Living Arrangements licensed by the state?

2 WAPADH’s Housing Services and Me

2.1 Who is eligible for Supported Living Services?
2.2 Why does an individual have to be 18 to be eligible for SLS?
2.3 Can a person be “too disabled” to use Supported Living Services?
2.4 How do I earn Supported Living Services?
2.5 What behavior would make me lose SLS?
2.6 If SLS is all about individual choices, what happens if I make a “bad” choice?
2.7 Will I be supported on nights, weekends, and holidays?
2.8 Who chooses the people who support me in SLS?
2.9 What happens if my needs change while I am receiving Supported Living Services? If I need increased support, will I lose SLS?
2.10 Will I be as safe living with SLS as I would be in a group home or larger institution? Doesn’t going out in the community make me vulnerable?
2.11 Will living in my own home, not surrounded by other consumers, make me lonely and disconnected?
2.12 How will the quality of my support be monitored and maintained if I use SLS?

3 WAPADH & the Planning of Housing Services

3.1 How does a person using SLS find a home?
3.2 Whose name is on the lease or title/deed of the home in which a consumer using SLS lives?
3.3 Who assigns my housemates when I use SLS?
3.4 What if I live with my family or in a group home where the cost was less than the cost for SLS?
3.5 What if I do not communicate using words – how do you know what my choices are?
3.6 What is Augmentative and Alternative Communication?
3.7 What is Faciliated Communication?
3.8 What is Person Centered Planning?
3.9 What is a “Circle of Support”?
3.10 What is an IPP?

Now that you have a brief, yet detailed description of WAPADH’s Housing Services’ FAQs, this is where you come in if you so choose. Beginning next week, I’ll be piecing together a FAQs section pertaining specifically to WAPADH’s Housing Services. If you have any questions that you’d like to see in any of these three sections besides the ones I’ve indicated above, don’t hesitate to let me know. You know how to get a hold of me. By the way, we’re trying to keep our FAQs section as simple as possible. Don’t get too fancy.

Beyond Our Website

WAPADH Housing Services — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:45:42 +0000

It looks like our new website is up and running. What do you think? We’ve put a lot of time and effort, creating the design, structuring the layout, and ensuring that the overall function and purpose of our new corner in cyberspace is up to our standards. Although our website might look completed, it is far from it. In the next few weeks you’ll see it gradually evolve into a well-designed, well-structured, full-functional website. We, at WAPADH, are hoping to make our website, our blogs, our Twitter, and Facebook accounts are as interactive as possible. That’s where you come in. Some of you have already joined these social networking sites and are contributing comments, participating in conversations, and adding pictures to “our network community” on a regular basis. Kudos to those of you who’ve jumped in with both feet! You may not realize it, but you just might motivate some of your colleagues to join. If you haven’t signed up for a Twitter or a Facebook account, get to it. I understand that they may be a bit intimidating. Okay – maybe a lot! In addition to coming across a bit intimidating, they may also come across as being quite trivial and pointless. That seems to be the general consensus when people unfamiliar with these social networking sites first hear about them. However, once you’ve gotten the hang of Twitter and Facebook and are fully immersed in them, they are not only informational, but they are pretty fun, and dare I say, addicting, as well. Just ask anyone who uses these social networking sites on a daily basis.

Before I go on, let me give you a brief history of social networking. Even though the term “social networking” may sound new to you, it really isn’t a new innovation. Believe it or not, social networking sites have been around since the mid-90s, but in recent years, social networking has exploded across the web. The Web 2.0 initiative has made modern social networking sites increasingly popular and easier to use than the initial wave of sites that launched some 15 years ago. In short, social networking sites are here to stay. They will only get more popular and people will continue to use them in new and innovative ways.

Because social networking sites have become such an important innovation in recent years, WAPADH will sponsor an informational session on Twitter and Facebook for those of you who are a bit curious about these social networking sites. For those of you who are already familiar with Twitter and Facebook, don’t feel left out. You are also more welcome to come and provide some insight on your experiences. This information session will also include a step-by-step opportunity to sign up for these social networking sites and also to become part of “our network community” as well. Be on the lookout for information soon on all of our blogs!

Even though each of our blogs have an assigned author already, we not only want them to be reciprocal through comments that you have an opportunity to leave, but we’d also like them to be a way for our WAPADH community to be guest contributors as well. So, if there is something, WAPADH related, you’d like to contribute to one of our three blogs – a story, an idea, a recent outing with your consumers, photographs, – whatever, please don’t hesitate to drop us an email, a text, or a phone call. Our information is on our website. If meeting in-person is more your style, you can always stop by our offices too. All of us have an “open door” policy.

I look forward to crossing and crisscrossing paths with you as a new and exciting chapter begins for WAPADH.

A Place to Call Home

WAPADH Housing Services — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:42:03 +0000

I don’t want to sound presumptuous, but for many of us, a home is something we cherish. I don’t simply mean those who inhabit it necessarily, but I’m talking about the actual physical structure itself. Think back when you were looking for a place to call a home. What exactly were you looking for? Was it a particular neighborhood? Was it something specific in the actual structure of a house – a design perhaps? Was it a combination of the two? Or, was it your own unique design? Whatever the impetus, it is a process that can be consuming. Regardless of what you were specifically looking for, there is one thing that binds us all together when looking for a home. In essence, we are looking for a place that not only moves us, but we are also looking for a place that we can see ourselves grow into over the years. It has to be a good fit, but it also has to have some room for growth as well. There needs to be a perfect balance between the two. And just like the members of our family, we want a home to become a part of us – an inanimate, but important member of our family.

At WAPADH’s Housing Services, the questions, insight, and overall experience found in the aforementioned paragraph is something that we strive for when we are in the process of looking for a home for one of our clients. It is not only a necessary ritual to go through, but it is an important one as well. It’s an important right of passage for all of our clients who are proactively exercising their freedom and taking that significant step of living in their own home for the first time. I don’t think any of us can argue the fact that there is no greater challenge or reward that accompanies the process of finding a home of one’s own. It is a process that doesn’t escape our clients as well. They experience the highs and the lows, and the certainties and the doubts found in this unique process. In a sense, these feelings are a good thing because they mirror the experiences that everyone goes through when finding a home. When it’s all said and done, these feelings remain with us forever. They become a part of us. In short, these feelings become the foundation, the initial step in finding our place in the world that will bring forth countless experiences that will last a lifetime. In short, our motto could very well be: Incipit Vita Nova — Here Begins New Life.

If you haven’t given much thought to the actual process of looking for that perfect place to call a home, you might want to stop and think about it for a bit. See what thoughts come to mind and what feelings it stirs. No matter what your experience might have been, whether good or bad, there is no doubt that you can probably recall it vividly and in the end smile because it was all worth it. You have a place to call a home.

Hello world!

WAPADH Housing Services — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:21:08 +0000

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