They know that abuse is wrong. They know they can lose their jobs and even risk legal penalties. We must acknowledge it as a basic reality. If clients, consumers, patients, vulnerable persons are not safe with the caregivers we recruit, train, supervise and evaluate we are at fault. It can be difficult to convince leadership that crisis management is not its most vexing task.
Y equals quality of life for our most challenging consumers.
Until the agency recognizes that creating quality at the Y level is the most intellectually and administratively demanding task of all, recurring themes, especially abuse, will persist. What We Believe Can Blind Us Organizational leaders will insist that they have good staff, who receive sound, practical training, who are evaluated by the use of competency based standards and who receive direct, immediate supervision. We believe there is one fundamental strategy for the abuse dilemma. The entire organization must embrace a set of shared principles that serve to elevate the human being be he or she consumer or employee. These principles must be conveyed in everyday courtesies, tolerances and support strategies and must never be diluted, compromised or ignored.