ASSESSMENT WHO ARE YOU ? WHAT IS AN ASSESSMENT. The Thesaurus tells us it is a MEASUREMENT, JUDGEMENT, EVALUATION, QUANTIFICATION, CONSIDERATION, CONTEMPLATION. Over my many years in the Community Sector I have used numerous different assessment tools, all aimed at telling the assessor firstly WHO IS THIS PERSON and secondly IF THEY ARE ELIGIBLE FOR THE SERVICE THEY PROVIDE.

SETTING THE SCENE Why Do We Assess. Setting up a new program whose basic concept was to be flexible. The debate over how long an assessment should be. CIHFR Assessment What are the benefits and why it works. The first two slides are put up as I talk.

Why Do We Assess 2 Reasons Because we are governed by a set of criteria that quantifies a persons eligibility to enter the program. Equally important is the need to gather information that will help build a picture of the person so that the support we offer is individual and right for them.

There is a lot of debate about how much time should be spent on an assessment. If it is long is it too intrusive? If it is short, does it miss vital information? My answer to this debate is that an assessment should be developed to meet the need of individual program types and their very individual clients. Simplistically; Frail Aged Day Care needs to know the basic information that all programs collect, name, age, and all the other info. Then they need to know about functionality, cognitive ability and personal likes and dislike around activities. Domestic Assistance, once again needs to know the basic’s and then, within the core activities available, what is it that the potential client needs support with. Both of these Service Type’s of programs only need to gather the basics with some extra, Service specific type of information.

I have used a lot of different Assessment Forms over the years so, when we received the funding for Flexible Respite, I knew what I wanted to build into the assessment tool. The Program is Community based respite for Carers of People who have Dementia and associated challenging behaviours. The way I have always seen it, particularly with this program, is that with respite we have two clients. The Carer who needs a break from their role, and the person who is going to be, can we call it “respited”, maybe not, but you know what I mean, the person with whom our staff will be interacting for a length of time. For this program in particular, we usually have a very stressed Carer and a Care Recipient whose needs are complex, change within a millisecond, and who can be misunderstood, not listened too, ignored, even mistreated because of lack of understanding. Our assessment was developed so that we could gather as much information as we could about both our clients, but also so that we could engage the Carer in the development of the care plan for the person with dementia, seeing them as the expert.

As we assess, we start to build a picture of the person, little insights into their individuality. For me, these insights should start the process of building the support plan’s. As you can see, I have said PLAN’S, plural. We need one for the Primary Carer and one for the Person with dementia.

Person with dementia’s assessment Care Plan CIHFR ASSESSMENT Intake Carer assessment Person with dementia’s assessment Care Plan We have just reviewed our Assessment and made changes to each part. They have been primarily minor changes but they keep the tool fresh and alive. The Assessment tool should always be a work in progress in some ways. I keep identifying ways to make it better, new wording, a different question, so on and so forth. The review needs to be a team effort so that all those who use it are involved in reviewing it.

WHO ARE YOU ? Our program is built around finding out as much as we can about you, so that in return, we can give you the very best service that takes into account your individuality. Lets go back to my thesaurus again. INDIVIDUAL; LIFE, EXISTANCE, BEING, SOUL, SPIRIT. Aren’t these powerful words. We believe that you, the Carers, are individuals. We believe that you, the People with dementia and challenging behaviours, are individuals. Therefore, each Care Plan we develop must be individual. In order for them to be individual, we need to gather as much information as we can from both of you, about both of you.

The Carer assessment includes information on the circumstances of their life now.