A Day in the Life of Residential Services

March 21, 2023

By John Mauricio, Assistant Program Supervisor

Foothills Gateway’s mission is to advocate for and empower individuals with disabilities to lead lives of their choice. Our vision is that we believe in a life of opportunity, of choice, and of dignity for every individual, regardless of age or ability. The team members in Residential Services work to develop and maintain relationships with individuals and support them in living lives of their choosing and aiding with this in all areas so that they have the broadest range of choice and access they desire.

Residential Services has a Program Director, Program Manager, three Assistant Program Managers (APS, and yours truly is one of those), an Office Support person (she knows everything), a Clinical Nurse Manager (she knows the rest) and a Health Services Assistant (whose laugh will make you smile no matter what mood you’re in). We do have regular work hours, from 8am to 4:30pm Monday through Friday, but we have a 24 hour on-call service that we all rotate so we can be available at a moment’s notice should any individual in service need anything from us that we are able to provide at literally any time.

We provide person centered service to 40 individuals that includes support with anything from their activities of daily living, medical care, dietary consultations, community access, recreational activities, and banking and financial support. We also assist in coordinating psychiatric services and behavioral supports and services. This is a broad generalization, but the bottom line is we, along with everyone else at Foothills, help them live their lives to the fullest.

At any given time in the Residential office, we could be working on service plan paperwork for individuals and attend service plan meetings which sets them up for success in the next year; we could be doing environmental or program monitors (in-person or virtually) which boils down to checking in and seeing how life is going for the individual and making sure all the t’s are crossed and the lower-case i’s are dotted as far as living arrangements and keeping up with daily documentation, and to see if they or the Host Home Provider needs anything from us or help with anything.

We keep track of Human Rights documentation for individuals and work to assure that the information is accurate for the Human Rights committee. We also gather information and produce progress summaries for each individual. Basically, a snapshot of what and how they are doing every six months.

Every APS works diligently on finding and setting up trainings for BURS providers (Back Up Residential Services) to help the Host Home Providers when they have things they need or want to do away from an individual or emergency situations that may arise. We also reach out to potential host home provider applicants to get them started on their journey to becoming Host Home Providers.

The Nurse Manager and Health Services Assistant work to make sure that each individual has a medical plan in place for their ultimate health and well-being. They work to ensure that appointments are made and followed up, medications are appropriate and working, and they keep track of diet and exercise as well where appropriate.

These are the basics of what is done in the Residential office, although we do whatever we are called on to do at different times. We all love what we do, help each other to help individuals and Host Home Providers, and have a good time and are fulfilled doing what we do.