What is my Community Habilitation worker allowed to provide?

Community habilitation is defined by OPWDD as a "Medicaid-funded program that provides one-to-one training to people with intellectual/developmental disabilities to develop or enhance the skills needed to live more independently in their homes or in the community" https://opwdd.ny.gov/providers/community-habilitation

Lets break this down further...

Community Habilitation or ("Comm Hab" or "Com Hab") is one of the most versatile services offered by OPWDD. OPWDD says is it a "one-to-one training" which basically means that this worker specifically works with the person with a developmental disability and not in a group setting. There are exceptions where Community Habilitation can be done in a group setting, but in the vast majority of cases, Community habilitation is provided just with the community habilitation worker and the person. For example, if you have two community habilitation workers that work with you, they will be unable to clock in and work with the person at the same time.

Next in our definition OPWDD says it is "to develop or enhance the skills needed to live more independently..." .This is an important key part of the definition as it basically indicates what the Community habilitation worker or "Comhab" can do. This part of the definition is pretty broad, and it should be. Every person is very unique, with their own strengths, wishes, likes, interests, and personalities. If you ask 10 different comhabs what they do, you might get 10 different answers. And that is beauty of how it should be, and gives comhabs the ability to perform many different types of tasks, depending on what their client needs. So because a comhab can do so many things, what we really need to do is come up with goals. This will set the basis for what "skills" need to be developed or enhanced, and therefore will dictate what the comhab will be asked to do.

You're Care Manager from your CCO (Care Coordination Organization) writes these goals inside what's called a "Life Plan". As the word suggests, this is a document that essentially covers every aspect of your life- Who you are, what you like, who are the significant supports in your life, and what goals you would like to achieve, written in a story-like type of format.

-Do you want to learn how to cook?

-Do you want to learn how to use the internet to search for things?

-Do you want to make friends?

-Do you want to volunteer?

-Do you want to learn how to use public transportation?

-Do you want to drive?

-Do you want to live on your own?

-The list goes on......

Whatever you feel you will help you live a better life, get in written into your life plan.

Whatever is listed in the life plan as a goal, can then be transferred into a "Staff Action Plan".

This staff action plan is essentially the job description of your community habilitation worker based on the goals written in the life plan. Every Staff Action Plan is more or less unique, because every person's goals or more or less different.

Because many people with developmental disabilities want to accomplish a vast range of goals and in varying degrees, a comhab can be tasked to assist with or provide many different activities. In my experience, the only activities that a comhab can't do are services that fall in a specific domain and would require specialized training or expertise, such as supported employment. Generally, as long as the comhab is comfortable and competent to assist a person with a developmental disability to engage in something that benefits that person's well-being or life goals, then it is likely fair game.

Here are some examples of comhab tasks that I have provided for clients in the past:

-Helping a person learn how to take a public bus or train

-Help a person learn how to cook, clean, or stay organized.

-Driving a person to a community event and supporting the person at this event.

-Going to sports games, concerts, or other entertainment activities with the person.

-Helping the person learn about budgeting money or depositing money in their bank accounts.

-Helping the person learn how to pay tip at a restaurant

-Attending community classes with the person

-Helping the person at the place where they volunteer

Here are some considerations of what a comhab can't do or shouldn't do:

-Provide supported employment (this service is technically for trained SEMP providers)

-Can't be used as a taxi service (If you drive an individual somewhere, the comhab should also be spending time with the person at whatever location they are attending, for it to count as comhab.

-Comhab shouldn't be doing a task for you every time. Their job is to teach the person how to do the tasks to increase their independence to the greatest degree possible. Even if it's just one small task. If the comhab consistently does every single task for you without teaching you or does not have some expectation that the person will learn a task to the greatest degree that they can, then that is not true community habilitation, it is care giving.

-Here is another interesting one- A Comhab should not be making choices for the person either. They should be guiding the person to help them make their own informed choices, and that means helping the person understand what is involved in the choice and how to make positive healthy choices to the greatest extent possible. Again, if you are the one making all the choices for the person without them being involved in those choices to some degree, then you are care giving and not providing true community habilitation. Ofcourse, there will be persons with disabilities who may not have the capacity to voice their opinions and choices directly. In these cases, the community habilitation worker should still be looking for clues through nonverbal communication, facial expressions, or other communication channels to get any feedback whatsoever as to what the person's likes, dislikes, and habits are and using this information and other techniques to help the person make healthy positive choices. A great community habilitation worker always gives options. In life, all of us have to engage in or complete things they we may not necessarily want to do, but are paramount for our health and well-being. As an example, if someone needs to take medication but doesn't want to, instead of forcing them to take the medication as a "do as I say" type of approach, you can still allow the person to be involved in the decision. You could say to the person "Would you like to take your medication now or at 2:30pm?" This question allows the person to still have the ability to make a choice in the matter, and that is what Comhab is all about.