What good attendant care looks like

Good attendant care is an amalgam of:

  • Your experience and what you bring
  • What your worker brings
  • How you do the work together
  • The experience of your family members and what they bring (in situations where attendant care is provided in family settings).
  • What your service provider brings
  • What your case manager brings

The following is a description of what good attendant care looks like from the perspective of the person receiving attendant care.

My experience

My experience is:

  • I am treated with dignity and respect (without discrimination).
  • I am working on my goals.         
  • I am building on my strengths.
  • I am part of decisions that affect me.
  • I have an individual service plan.
  • I am able to be myself.
  • I communicate well with my worker.
  • I am supported and encouraged to be independent in areas I am able to manage.
  • I feel my worker understands me and the emotional journey I have been through (e.g. injury, grief, loss and their impacts)
  • I participate in the social, family and community as much as I want and am able.
  • When things go wrong I know the steps to take to get them fixed.
  • My privacy is respected.
  • My home is respected.
  • I allow my worker to do their work.
  • I feel confident my worker is supported by their supervisor/service coordinator.

Doing the work together

In working together with my worker:

  • I treat my worker with respect and dignity.
  • I work on my goals to achieve my plan.
  • Our work is goal directed work.
  • We communicated well.
  • We respect each other.
  • We keep the relationship professional.
  • I don’t try to get my worker to be my friend.
  • My worker doesn’t try to get me to be their friend.
  • My worker doesn’t accept gifts.
  • My worker doesn’t share their personal details with me.
  • I don’t ask my worker to do things that are outside their role.

My family context

Where a person is receiving attendant care at home with other family members also living in the home then my worker:

  • Collaborates with family members as part of the team.
  • Understands how families work as one system - any change for one family member will affect every other family member in some way.
  • Understands family member reactions -  is able to put themselves in the shoes of family members and make sense off their reactions, such as confusion and fear, distress and anger
  • Treats all family members with respect .
  • Workers with family members strengths.

 

What my worker brings

My worker:

  • Understands brain injury/spinal cord injury
  • Has the practical skills to work with me on what’s needed: e.g.
    • Manual handling
    • Personal hygiene and grooming
    • Maintenance of continence
    • Principles of skin care
    • Assisting with nutrition
    • Assisting with medications
    • Worker Health and safety rights and responsibilities, policies and procedures
    • Infection control
  • Has the interpersonal and communication skills to:
    • Effectively communicate with me/ my family/ other relevant people
    • Understand me and my needs from psychological, social and mental well being perspectives
    • Identify and respond appropriately to behaviours of concern (difficult or challenging behaviour).
  • Respects my privacy (and keeps confidential information confidential)
  • Follows the service provider’s policies and procedures.
  • Arrives on time.
  • Does what they are supposed to do.
  • Does not over step professional boundaries (e.g. tries to be my friend).
  • Understands my cultural and/or religious background sufficiently to better work with me (than if the worker didn’t understand my cultural and/or religious background).
  • Has the skills to deal with conflict and assist in resolving it.
  • Is in ongoing communication with their supervisor/service coordinator.

 

What my service provider brings

My service provider:

  • Ensures staff have the basic skills and knowledge they need in order to work effectively with me.
  • Introduces staff to me and orients them to my unique situation and what’s required.
  • Works as part of a team with other agencies, services, etc. that may also be working with me.
  • Monitors what my worker does
  • Is approachable.
  • Is accessible – and works in a transparent, fair and responsive way in commencing, providing, changing or ending services.
  • Effectively manages disputes.
  • Effectively resolves complaints (in a timely way).
  • Is always on the lookout for ways to improve the work.
  • Gives me confidence if I made a complaint to my service provider it would be dealt with appropriately (and I would not fear adverse consequences).
  • Has a philosophy of continually monitoring and improving its services.

My Case manager

My case manager:

  • Has worked with me to identify my goals and the services I need to support me in achieving them.
  • Has high expectations that everyone can and should enjoy the good life (and is not just planning to meet my basic needs or fit me into existing services).
  • Places me at the centre of the planning for achieving my goals.
  • Sees me as someone who is a member of a community – with family, friends, social networks, work and education opportunities and so on.
  • Helps coordinate the various services and agencies that I work with so that they work together as a team to support me in achieving my goals.
  • Explained what attendant care is.