How Can You Boost Your Family Member’s Confidence?
No matter what developmental disabilities your family member is facing, she can improve her skills and grow her confidence levels in her own abilities. A combination of these steps can help you to be there for your family member as you help her to gain more confidence and independence.
Focus on What She Can Do
The biggest step you can take to boost the confidence of a family member with developmental disabilities is to focus on what she can do, rather than on what she can’t do. When you shift that focus to what your family member is able to do, that helps her to see that there’s so much that falls into that category. The things that she can’t do tend to fade into the background a little bit more readily and your family member is less likely to feel helpless and hopeless in the face of new tasks.
Independence within Safe Boundaries Is Important
Safety is always the most important aspect of someone’s care. But you also want to foster independence for your family member as much as possible. That means that when your family member is setting about a task that you know she’s capable of handling, let her do what she’s able to do. Make sure that the task is being handled safely, and be prepared to step in if she asks you for help.
Set Some Goals and Build on Current Strengths
Making progress means that your family member has some actual goals and knows how to work toward those goals. Sit down with her and focus on her current abilities. Then talk about areas in which she wants to improve and start putting goals together that support those areas. Make the goals challenging, but doable, so that she’s able to see the progress she’s making over time.
Work with Residential Habilitation Experts
Residential habilitation specializes in helping your family member with developmental disabilities to learn and master the skills that she finds more challenging. RHS helps your family member to keep the focus on what she’s able to do while also broadening her independence, too. RHS providers can help you and your family member to set appropriate goals and to work toward achieving them, too.
As your family member’s confidence grows, so too will her abilities. She and you will be amazed at just how much she can accomplish as she spreads her wings even more.
If you are considering residential habilitation in Speedway, 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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