What Does Behavior Support Management Do?
For people with developmental disabilities, their behaviors are often more difficult to predict and to manage. That can lead to some really difficult situations that get out of hand quickly. One answer is to get some help with behavior support management. These types of services help to identify problems, establish goals for correcting those issues, and then practice the new behaviors.
Helps to Develop Communication Skills
Residential habilitation works to help individuals with disabilities to examine their existing communication skills and develop them further. Often those communication skills need repetition and reinforcement in order to become skills that your family member leans on in difficult situations. The techniques that might have been more common in the past, like yelling or throwing things, gradually reduce as those more effective communication skills are easier to express because of the practice.
Helps to Develop Coping Skills
Communication skills help a lot, but so do coping skills. When someone with developmental disabilities doesn’t have effective coping skills, tantrums and acting out become a bigger problem because that’s the only way that person feels they can express themselves. Coping mechanisms like self-soothing and recognizing triggers and responding in different ways can all go along way toward making life easier for everyone involved.
Gradually Assists in Decreasing the Recurrence of Certain Behaviors
Challenging behaviors interrupt so very much for your family member. With practice and attention to triggering events and situations it’s a lot easier to address what’s going on and to introduce more positive responses. Over time, these individual events and responses work together to help to reduce the likelihood that the challenging behaviors are the default responses from your family member.
Puts Together an Action Plan Based on Goals
Understanding triggers, identifying new coping mechanisms, and practicing alternative communication skills are all part of the action plan that residential habilitation services can help to put together for your family member. That plan relies on identifying and then working toward specific goals that you and your family member want to achieve. The plan may need adjusting occasionally as new goals are identified and achieved.
Behavior support management may be exactly what you and your family member need in order to identify and to put into place new strategies for dealing with challenging situations. The strategies and techniques that your family member learns are ones that can be applied throughout life, making every situation easier to cope with as it unfolds.
If you are considering behavior support management in Greenfield, 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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