5 Services Group Homes Should Provide Adults with Developmental Disabilities

Group homes can be a great care option for adults with developmental disabilities. They are a more natural feeling environment than institutions but provide greater services than families often can access from their homes. In group homes, the goal is to help residents have as normal of a life as possible and to participate in their care as fully as their abilities allow.

There are certain services every group home should offer.

1. Assistance with Activities of Daily Living

Activities of daily living are things that people need to do to care for themselves. This can include showering, dressing, eating, and toileting. Group homes should have the durable medical equipment (DME) necessary to help disabled residents care for themselves.

Different residents will have different abilities. There should be staff available to assist with activities the resident isn’t able to perform for themselves while allowing them as much independence and autonomy as possible.

2. Treatment Management

Group homes should assist residents in making appointments with healthcare providers and transporting those residents to appointments. Workers at the group home should also manage the resident’s medication schedule, as well as scheduling physician-ordered therapies.

3. Opportunities for Chores

Part of the benefit of a group home is allowing residents to live the most normal life they are able to. Participating in household chores helps residents take pride in where they live and what they are able to contribute. Having chores that coincide with a resident’s abilities allows the resident to live their most independent life and to expand their skillset.

4. Outdoor Time

Residents should have frequent opportunities for safe time outdoors. Being outside can create hazards for adults with developmental disabilities, however, being in nature is important to human health and well-being.

Safe and supervised opportunities to go outdoors and embrace nature, even if it is simply in a fenced-in yard, is good for the resident’s health and well-being. Group homes should have the equipment needed for residents to easily move from indoors to outdoors such as ceiling and mobile lifts.

5. Community Opportunities

Group homes give residents the opportunity to socialize but, ideally, residents should have opportunities to go into the community. This might involve abilities-appropriate classes at the YMCA or shopping trips with a caregiver. Helping residents to become part of the community outside of their residential home gives them a greater sense of purpose and normalcy.

Need Equipment for Your Group Home?

If you manage a group home in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, or Connecticut and need durable medical equipment (DME), Lift and Care Systems can help. Call us today at (508) 465-5254 or fill out this online contact form.