How Do Habilitation Experts Determine What Your Family Member Needs?
Part of getting the most out of residential habilitation services involves getting an accurate assessment of your family member’s needs so that the right plan can be put in place. Here’s how that happens.
Examining Your Family Member’s Environments
The different environments that your family member exists within all demand different skillsets from her. Whether she’s at home, out in the community, or seeking employment, habilitation specialists will examine those different environments to see how your family member reacts and interacts within them. That’s the basis of determining needs.
Evaluating Existing Skillsets
The next step is to identify and evaluate your family member’s current skills. There are likely a lot of skills that she’s already built up, and that means it’s going to be easier to build on those. For example, your family member may already be able to get dressed on her own. That’s a vital skillset for her to have and it can be expanded upon to include deciding when it’s appropriate to do things like wear a jacket.
Identifying Gaps within Skillsets
When skills are self-taught, there might be gaps that aren’t apparent. Habilitation specialists can help to spot those gaps and work with your family member to fill them in. If there are gaps between where she is now and where she wants to be with a specific set of skills, they can help with that, too. Until those gaps are identified, it’s going to be difficult to offer the right habilitation.
Talking with Appropriate People about Necessary Skills and Supports
It’s also going to be important for habilitation experts to talk with other people in your family member’s life about the different supports and skills that they see as necessary for her. This is a really helpful way to get even more information about what might be missing for her.
Prioritizing Instruction
Once all the information is collected, it’s much easier to prioritize which skills are most important for your family member right now. There may be some skills that seem important at first blush, but which can take a back seat until other skills are mastered. Having the right prioritization is going to ensure success for your family member, which is important.
Residential habilitation services offer a process through which your family member’s biggest needs are identified and then met, in a variety of ways. RHS offers a chance for your family member to safely and thoroughly gain the skills she needs in order to be successful out in the world.
If you are considering residential habilitation 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.
- NOTICE: Indiana Direct Service Workforce Investment Grant - January 30, 2023
- Take a Break and Let Respite Care Aides Help Out - November 10, 2021
- Let Residential Habilitation Services Bring Independence to Your Child With Down Syndrome - October 20, 2021