www.ohca.com SPRING/SUMMER 2024 The Oregon Caregiver 7 FEATURE Home and community-based services (HCBS) are a set of rules and regulations that ensures individuals choosing to receive care within their homes or within a community have the same rights as they would if they were not receiving care. Dawn Pratt is the chief operations officer of Caring Places Management. However, HCBS is more than just rules to be followed, it is a mindset shift. HCBS is person-centered care that emphasizes the idea that individuals receiving care are more than just their diagnosis: they are complex people with unique histories, passions, dislikes, and desires. Freedom of choice is one of the most basic of human rights, and HCBS embraces it. The implementation and encouragement of HCBS training in long term care has brought this concept to the forefront in the minds of caregivers and all long term care staff statewide. Across Oregon, the implementation of HCBS training is encouraging care providers to re-evaluate various aspects of resident care plans. Whether that inc- ludes adjusting communication preferences, curating highly-individualized activity schedules, or updating their menus to suit individual residents’ tastes, facilities statewide are viewing HCBS rules as an opportunity, not a roadblock. In this article, Billie Wingfield, Michele Nixon, Dawn Pratt, and the staff at Avamere at Chestnut Lane provide a few examples of how caregivers in Oregon have welcomed HCBS, incorporating it in every aspect of a resident’s daily life. Some Ways Providers Are Embracing Resident Preferences When it comes to activities, Dawn Pratt, chief operations officer of Caring Places Management, believes that activities must provide purpose, pleasure, or peace. Clearly, these are subjective terms that are not one-size-fits-all. Especially in a memory care setting, it is incredibly important for residents to engage in activities that give them a purpose and help to dispel anxious behaviors. Pratt believes in the power of individualized activities, allowing residents at different levels and with different interests to feel catered to and fulfilled. In one of Pratt’s facilities, staff heavily utilize “life skills stations:” work- environment simulations that reflect the real jobs of the residents. There could be grocery store settings, offices, nurseries, etc.; you name it and the staff would accommodate it. Pratt recalls one resident who was a postal worker for her entire career: “Every single day, this woman would say ‘I need to go to work,’ which is very common in a memory care community. So, the staff put together a life skills station for her with a time clock so she could clock in; USPS signage; and a table with envelopes, stamps, and packages,” said Pratt. “She would spend the day delivering packages and mail to other residents, and it kept her busy, engaged, and feeling satisfied. She was still working and fulfilling what she felt like was her purpose.” This was all just based on one woman’s job, the staff realizing that she would not feel pleasure or purpose from ‘working’ a job she had no connection with. At Caring Places facilities, Pratt says this attitude and embracement of individual resident preferences is just a way of life. “We have always built our facilities around resident preferences and the CONTINUES » individual resident. We create one-onone individual activities plans. Our activities calendars are updated monthly, and they are everchanging with what the current interests are, not what the interests were five years ago, or even six “Every single day, this woman would say ‘I need to go to work,’ which is very common in a memory care community. So, the staff put together a life skills station for her with a time clock so she could clock in; USPS signage; and a table with envelopes, stamps, and packages, She would spend the day delivering packages and mail to other residents, and it kept her busy, engaged, and feeling satisfied.” – Dawn Pratt, Caring Places Management
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