Hello!

Welcome!

My son got me started with blogs this week. This is my second one. My first one is Jan's Idea Box. You can check it out at Jans-ideas.blogspot.com. I will have three by the end of June. The next one will be Jan's Trail to Financial Freedom.

I have worked with physically and mentally disabled adults and children since 1998. I was a supervisor for a lady who was independently employed. She did so well with me that her job coach recommended me for a position as a job coach with the company she worked for. I got the job and have been in the this field ever since. I job coached a group who cleaned hotel rooms. When they went down to one group at the hotel, my group was dissolved. I transfered to the day program with the same company. When I became single, the hours didn't work well with my young children at home. I applied and got a job with a residential program in 2000. I have been there since. With this company I have been an assistant house manager, a house manager, a recreation tech, and worked on their newsletter. My current positions are support staff, relief staff, and photographer.

Two of the needs I have noticed in this field is that staff is often isolated in the homes and a lack of appropriate printed material for the residents. To fill the need for conecting staff among homes and companies, I will share ideas at this blog. Eventually I would like to expand into a website and newsletter. I would like input from others for topics. To fill the need for appropriate printed material, next year I will begin developing and printing material that is age appropriate (visually) and developementally appropriate (content).

As relief staff I get to talk to a variety of staff and see many ways of handling situations. I get to see how each house personalizes routines for it's residents. So often support staff is only exposed to one or two houses and how they are run and how the staff and manager of that house handles things. Gathering information from many houses can bring the best ideas from all the homes together and it can inspire new ideas. Since I have held a variety of positions, I see situations from more than one view. The more information we have will only help each of us provide the best living conditions for people who cannot provide it for themselves due to their disabilities. It's up to us to make their group home THEIR HOME.

Instead of starting from scratch every time, lets team up and share ideas how to keep the HOME in group home!