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Training
and Technical Assistance (1998-2003)
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| Supporting Joint Future
Planning by Adults with Developmental Disabilities (Elizabeth DeBrine, Tia Nelis) Objectives To test the effectiveness of a peer training and support intervention involving the joint participation of families and their relative with a disability on older families' knowledge and attitudes toward future planning, the degree to which they make plans, and on caregiving burden and satisfaction. |
Target Audience
Families,
adults with mental retardation, service providers
Product Output
Overcoming
the Obstacles to Making Future Plans: A Training Curriculum for Adults with
Developmental Disabilities and Their Families (includes materials for training
staff to be facilitators); Future Planning Resource Guide for Individuals with
Developmental Disabilities and Their Families in Illinois (in English &
Spanish). Other states can use this book as a template for developing their
own resource guides.
Training Content
The future
planning training topics included: a) person-centered planning, b) housing,
c) legal issues, will and estate planning, d) work and retirement, and e) leisure
(mental, physical, social, spiritual). The content also included information
and resource materials from the pooled trust and family financed housing studies.
Progress to Date
The first
training program has been completed and is now being replicated in southern
Illinois. To date, 553 family members, 281 professionals, and 111 consumers
have participated in the training. As a result of the seven training sessions
held in 2000, we shortened the curriculum from seven to five sessions, and designed
and divided the Letter of Intent to correspond with the monthly topics to facilitate
completion by family members.
Utility of the Training
Evaluations from the all of the families rated the training staff very high in presentation, program organization and content. One Latino family member stated, "This program helped us to better understand more about our sons and daughters and what we should do to make decisions." Families rated the session on legal issues as the highest with housing, building relationships, and work following. One family member wrote the most important thing that she learned was "to keep moving forward. I know what needs to be done. I just need motivation to continue." One agency is requiring all families to have a written plan in the individual with disabilities' file that is similar to our letter of intent. One parent stated, " You made the letter of intent very easy. You gave suggestions for each section and the examples were fantastic. I finished it in no time." The significant outcomes are that more families are likely to make letters of intent and family caregiving burden is reduced. Parents who participated in the project are leading future planning groups for other families.
associated with:
Supporting Adults with Mental Retardation and Their
Family in Future Planning Training (R3.3)
Family Future Planning Resource Guide