CONTACT: Stephanie Smiley, 608-266-1683

DIVISION OF QUALITY ASSURANCE WINS NINTH AWARD FOR BEST PRACTICES

MADISON - The Department's Division of Quality Assurance has won a 2008 Promising Practices award from the Association of Health Facility Survey Agencies. The Division won an award for developing and delivering statewide abuse and neglect prevention training for direct caregivers in long-term care settings.

The Division of Quality Assurance (DQA) staff recognized a critical need for direct caregivers to receive training that offers the behavioral and interpersonal skills to respond positively in potentially abusive situations. While all caregivers receive clinical training to provide for the physical needs of residents and clients, this additional training teaches caregivers how to offer the emotional and social support necessary to establish a positive relationship with those in their care. Providing those skills is likely to reduce many incidents of abuse and neglect.

"I am very proud that DQA has received this award," said Secretary Karen Timberlake. "The training our staff has developed is interactive and combines a variety of training styles in order to ensure the best outcome for participants. I have no doubt that this training will help caregivers prevent abuse and neglect in long-term care settings."

Utilizing a federal grant, DQA researched existing abuse prevention training for nurse aides, home health and assisted living aides, and personal care workers to find promising practices offering specific approaches to prevent caregiver misconduct. Staff found the majority of the available training focused on the definitions of abuse, neglect and misappropriation, but it did little to change behavior. Based on this knowledge, DQA developed more than 34 hours of abuse and neglect prevention training that utilizes multi-media .The University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Center for Career Development & Employability Training collaborated in creating the training.

More than 2,100 direct caregivers attended the training and approximately 1000 additional participants received in-house training in their own facilities between March 2006 and September 2007. Due to the popularity of the training, DQA has also offered train-the-trainer opportunities for providers statewide. To date, 541 facility trainers and supervisors have attended these sessions and estimated they would train over 75,000 direct caregivers in Wisconsin.

Training materials include eight reality-based scenarios of caregiver misconduct in which participants take on the life of a character in order to learn skills to prevent abuse and neglect. This experiential training is available as both live training and on DVD. Additional training topics include Keys to Professional Caregiving, Supporting the Professional Caregiver, Conducting Internal Investigations of Caregiver Misconduct and Responding to Challenging Situations.

All training materials are available at: dhs.wisconsin.gov/caregiver/training/trgIndex.htm

To register for a train-the-trainer event or for more information, visit: www.caregiverproject.org

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Last Revised:  July 12, 2010