Current Projects:
Critical Incident Reporting System
With the collaboration of stakeholders, the NH Living Well team is developing a platform on HRS, resulting in more comprehensive, up-to-date data collection that can be easily accessed to run reports and identify trends. This will improve data collection and streamline crucial elements of the community monitoring system for all stakeholders, ensuring the final product is relevant, appropriate, and best serves the needs of the community.
Medication Administration Training: The state was interested in updating the way in which the Medication Administration Training was offered due to the age of the video and its’ content. The action taken to update the medication administration training to make it more accessible will help improve the retention of the staff in the workforce and make entering the workforce easier for new employees. Hosting the medication administration training online ensures accessibility of the resource beyond the lifespan of the grant, in addition to the components of the live, in-person training being distributed throughout the state.
DSP Training: The NH Council on Developmental Disabilities, ABLE NH and People First of NH partnered to develop a DSP training “Dream Big: Tools for Tools for Supporting Individual Choice & a Robust Community-Based Life.” This training focuses on the DSP’s role in supporting choice for persons with disabilities in five life domains: Employment, Health Care, Life-Long Learning, Civic Engagement and Community Living.
Care & Connect: The Care & Connect Program/Course is a partnership of CSNI working through the Living Well: NH Quality Frameworks grant, Gateways Community Services, The PLUS Company, and Wilbur H. Palmer Career and Technical Education Center of Alvrine High School. Through this18-week program, students will participate in all the initial trainings required by the State of NH to be employed as direct support professionals. The concepts are presented using lecture, class discussion, collaborative learning, experiential learning, role play, and interaction with individuals served and professionals working in the adult service system.
DSP Resource Guide: In response to comments made in the DSP survey, we have undertaken a systematic review of DSP training resources. The result will be a guide that lists a variety of PDF and web-based resources categorized by topic. This guide is currently available as a PDF and is now also available as a searchable resource directory on our website.
Completed Projects:
Direct Support Professionals (DSP) Survey: As part of the process of determining how we will demonstrate improved competencies to improve access to and quality of Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) to individuals in the community we reviewed the questions and summary of data received in the survey that was issued in the late 2019.
Focus Groups: The NH Council on Developmental Disabilities and ABLE NH collaborated to co-facilitate focus groups with individuals receiving services and supports and family members related to the effectiveness of training. Community Support Network, Inc. (CSNI) also held focus groups specific for DSPs around these topics. The feedback of the focus groups contributed to the final report of the initial DSP survey.
Quality Indicators Self-Assessment Tool for NH: The Quality Indicators Self-Assessment Tool for NH was completed and shared with ACL, HSRI, Lewin Group, and Mission Analytics as well as other Living Well grantees in August.
DSP Training: The project team developed and piloted a quality-informed training on Home and Community Based Settings requirements for direct support workers and home providers. As a result, from feedback from the pilot, an additional training was developed and delivered specific to Service Coordinators/Case Managers.
Service Agreement: Through a contract with Health Risk Screening (HRS), Inc., the Service Agreement form and documents were updated. A training for all service coordinators was offered and the revised Service Agreement process was piloted with two of the ten regionally based Area Agencies. Feedback from the training and pilot recommendations resulted in the need for additional changes. The service agreement was finalized and released for use on January 1, 2021.
DSP Support Guides during COVID-19: In response to the stay-at-home order and social distancing in March of 2020, CSNI collaborated with a provider organization to develop, produce and distribute eight weekly guides for supporting individuals in their homes. These guides provided activities for support people to employ relative to individual service agreement goals, and that directly met the expectations of NH administrative rules for person-centered services. These guides can be found at https://csni.org/coronavirus-covid-19.
Upcoming Projects
Individual Right’s Booklet: The development of an individual rights training including members of People First of NH is an upcoming grant project. Chapter He-M 310 is being revised by NH DHHS and once revised will drive this project forward to recreate the Individual Right’s Booklet for the delivery system.
Follow Up DSP Survey: As part of the process of determining how we will demonstrate improved competencies to improve access to and quality of HCBS services to individuals in the community we reviewed the questions and summary of data received in the original survey issued in 2019 and will distribute another survey in 2021.
