Real Lives, Real People

Quality Improvement for Residential Serivces

Benhaven began serving adults in 1977. For the first 15 years, the adults spent most of their time either at a small farm Benhaven operated or in a sheltered workshop. By the early 1980’s, real jobs with community businesses were found for some of the adults. Over time, it became clear that the “special” settings – the farm and the workshop – actually did not work very well for people with the problems associated with autism. The farm and greenhouse work was abandoned by the mid-1980s. By 1990, there was a clear commitment to find community jobs for everyone. The sheltered workshop was closed in 1992. Benhaven converted its adult services for adults to an employment service. While this was, in many ways, an improvement, it still seemed inadequate. Some of the people had difficulty getting jobs in which they could succeed and find happiness. An assessment was conducted of how well Benhaven was doing in helping the adults it served to lead rich, fulfilling lives. The judgment reached was that, for many people, Benhaven was failing.

In 2001, Benhaven started its Real Lives/Real People project. The overall goal of this project was to reorganize Benhaven’s approach to supporting adults with autism. This new organized approach would be to incorporate the best available practices to program planning, program implementation, program assessment, and quality management and improvement into a system designed to help people build and lead successful, happy lives. The hallmarks of this project were to be: person-centeredness, individualized, community-based support, intense support to direct staff, monitoring the achievement of desired personal outcomes, and continuously trying to improve.

Three goals were established:

• Each person will have an ambitious Individual Support Plan designed to help that person have a “real life” – as opposed to a life as part of a program.
• Each support plan will be carried out effectively by a cadre of committed people who provide support with great skill, enthusiasm, and respect.
• All members of the staff will participate in formal, individual, professional development plans designed to build their skills and understanding to enable them to provide this support extremely well.

To this point, we are quite pleased with how much happier and satisfied people have become with their lives. For the first time, we feel that we have committed to an approach that will lead to the results we are seeking.