Four Ways Habilitation Helps Build Community Participation and Skills
Learning to manage in the community when also dealing with developmental disabilities is not easy to do. Your family member may find that having help from residential habilitation services gives her the time and the assistance she needs to be able to feel more comfortable exploring her community.
Developing Necessary Daily Skills
Being out in public requires your family member to have some skills mastered that can be complicated to manage at first. Things like remembering phone numbers and handling money and change may seem easy to you now, but with practice you mastered them. Habilitation offers your family member the chance to practice all of these skills and more as many times as necessary to feel comfortable with them.
Learning How to Socialize with Others
Socializing can be difficult for people who have developmental disabilities. The rules of socializing with other people are confusing and they may involve actions and skills that your family member doesn’t yet possess. Residential habilitation can help your family member to practice these skills, learn how to communicate effectively, and learn what’s expected by most people out in the world at large.
Managing Grooming and Other Aspects of Personal Care
Feeling her best when she’s out in the community can come down to being more comfortable with certain aspects of personal care for your family member. When she’s able to do things like groom herself properly, eat in public, and find the bathroom when she needs it, that’s going to help her to feel more comfortable when she’s out in the community. These skills, like so many others, come more readily with lots of practice and reinforcement.
Personalized Goals and Plans to Meet Individual Needs
The most important part of habilitation is that the goals and the plans are personalized to meet your family member’s needs. As your family member masters certain skills, it’s easy to shift gears and to either move on to the next level of that group of skills or start trying something new. Everything is tailored to what your family member most needs to learn or to master to feel comfortable participating in her community.
Residential habilitation is about helping your family member to gather the tools she needs to be able to venture into community settings and feel comfortable doing so. That alone can open up so many different opportunities for her to meet people and to find new activities.
If you are considering behavior therapy programs in Greenwood, IN, please call the caring staff at RSI Cares. Serving Greater Indianapolis Area. Call for Immediate Info & Assistance: 317-471-0750.
As a practicing Registered Nurse, Etelka was keenly aware of a void in quality patient care that could be provided in the home. She embarked upon a journey to develop a home health care agency that would exceed all expectations and become a trusted partner to physicians and patients.
A Distinguished Career From Nurse to Director of Nursing to President of Home Services Unlimited
Etelka’s distinguished career followed a logical progression to her position as President of Home Services Unlimited. She graduated as a nurse practitioner with a Bachelor of Nursing (RN) in 1972 from Meshgorya University in the Ukraine, close to where she lived with her family. She married her husband Phil in 1973 and decided in 1977 that they would relocate to the United States to be closer to family and to come to this land of opportunity. With an eagerness to continue her budding career, Etelka sat for and passed her Boards in the U.S. in 1979.
A Love and Talent for Working with the Elderly
Etelka began her nursing career in the U.S. at Colonial Crest, now part of Golden Living, where shewasthe In-service Coordinator, the Director of Training and Education and Director of Nursing, a position she occupied for several years.
With a group of partners, she co-founded Adept Corporation, which operated group homes for the mentally challenged. The business was successful and in 1996, Etelka sold her share to return to her roots, caring for the elderly.
In January of 1997, Etelka opened Home Services Unlimited as a fully licensed business to provide home health care. In her quest to learn to do better for her patients, she had already obtained a Masters in Healthcare Administration (MHA) in May of 1990 from the College of St. Francis. As President of Home Services Unlimited, Inc., Etelka guides the trusted, experienced care model Home Services Unlimited uses to continue providing excellent home health care.
Giving Back to the Community of Indianapolis
Volunteering for community services is a high priority for Etelka. Her memberships include the Indiana Association of Rehabilitation Facilities, Executive Women in Health Care and the Indiana Association for Home and Hospice Care, where she is a member of the Board of Directors.
Etelka has also served on the Board of Directors with Hooverwood Home, a highly regarded geriatric facility, since 1997 and as the President for 2005-2006. Through her community work, she has received several awards and accolades, including the Nora McFarland award in 2002, from the Indiana Association of Home and Hospice Care.
Etelka was honored as a “Health Care Hero” by the Indianapolis Business Journal. The issue can be read online here:
http://mags.ibj.com/activemagazine/welcome/html/ibjhch.html.
After clicking on the link, then click on the image of the issue’s front page. After that, you can browse through the issue or click in a box near the top of your internet browser to adjust the page to 17, which is where Etelka’s article appears.
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