Training Direct Care Staff to Support Self-Determination

Principles of self-determination form the core of a new model of supports for adults with developmental disabilities who often rely on others for on-going assistance in daily living activities. Workers providing these direct supports influence opportunities for self- determination-the control over, choice in, and responsibility for one's daily life. The purpose of this project is to deliver innovative content on the concepts and practices of promoting self-determination in a video- based training package for direct support workers. As institutional residential settings are being phased out in favor of community placements, and states across the country scramble to meet the needs of thousands on waiting lists for community services, support agencies are pressured to continually recruit and train new staff. The proposed video training package offers an affordable means of providing up-to-date training to the newly hired as well as the existing 400,000 residential and vocational staff. The Phase I video introduced viewers to six components of promoting self-determination. In Phase II, a complete set of four videos and user guides will be developed to provide detailed information and practice activities on all six components of supporting self-determination. Phase II activities will include evaluating the effectiveness of the training materials using a randomized two-group pre-post design with 200 subjects. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: To meet the training needs of 400,000 direct support workers, effective and inexpensive methods of training are needed. This video training will provide service agencies with a cost-effective way to train workers on the new model of self-determination. IRIS Media will market and disseminate the product through direct marketing to service agencies as well as placing the product with leading industry distributors.