Thursday, June 26, 2008
Rising cost of living costs....how does it affect your work?
Daily we are hearing stories of how the rising costs of fuel and food are impacting lives. I would like to hear from DSP's as to how they and those they support are dealing with the ever rising basic living costs. How are agencies coping...are they changing their strategies..how might these changes impact the lives of those supported?
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6 comments:
I am no longer a DSP, but am still in the fiels and I worry about how DSP's are making it. A gallon of gas for some is almost half an hour's wage! I am hopeful that agencies are finding creative ways to support thier staff and the people they support during this demanding time.
Oh man, problems everywhere! This seems to have hit us quit quickly. No time to adjust. One day you can afford a burger, fries and a coke, You wake up the next day and have to borrow a buck to get just a coke. One man I support at work, gets a 60 cent soda at break and another for lunch every day. Today he couldn't do that because his groceries cost him 20 dollars extra this week. That 20 was his spending money for the week. So now no more sodas for work, no more nothing. That extra 20 was his entire entertainment budget for the week. We will sit down this week to try to find ways to pinch pennys. (I'm getting pretty good at this since I don't make much more than the people I support)
As far as the agency goes, Its penny pinching time. Schedules have been redone to save milage costs,copy paper, office supplys are in short supply. But the worst thing I see happening is that we have to become a money centered program more than a people centered program. I love my job, part of the reason I do is the people we support always came first. Now we are being forced to consider the cost of everything first. In my opinion THAT SUCKS!
In our agency, we do an exercise as part of Person Centered Planning, in which we list a person's "Non-Negotiables," "Strong Preferences" and "Desires." With the economy - and the environment - in crisis, that exercise has become really helpful in deciding how to use our limited resources. Our generation has always been pretty blessed and we have a bit of a culture of taking things for granted. I think the challenge is for the "system" to start looking at things in new ways (think of how much paper we go through!) and the real challenge is how to help people we support understand the changing times and how to adapt. With each decision - about spending money, about driving on activities, about utilities such as electric and gas, about which foods we eat - we'll have to get in the habit of evaluating "how important is this to me?" We'll find ourselves sacrificing more and more "Desires" and "Preferences" just to maintain our "Non-Negotiables." Some of the individuals I work with are pretty well informed; they watch the news and are aware that "times are hard." Others may never fully understand, but they will still feel an impact in their quality of life. That can create quite a challenge for us.
Our agency is very Person First Centered,If a Person that I support wants to go out into the community and dose not have the funds left in his or her account we use petty cash.To this date, No one has ever been denied due to a lack of funding. I know that times are hard on everone but I feel that as D.S.P.s we can help our agencies by watching our own professional spending habits.We need to make sure that we are as cost effective as possable with all buying desisions and that we make the best use of all availble resources in order to provide the Best Quality Services
Agency supports to staff have included ideas about ride sharing between co-workers on same shift, we send out a monthly "news" to staff about bargains in town (ex: $1 movies at Tuesdays etc), ENCOURAAGING all staff to contact their Legislators regularly! (always!), more meetings on phone or online (less driving), encouraging "go green" in all aspects of work and every day life, sending out resources/websites to staff for help in paying bills etc.
It's not much, but at least we want to let them know right now that we understand and care and would like to help if we can in some little way.
hopefully the agencies will either raise their rate or make it possible for their workers to do longer shifts so that they can save on traveling. Although it is very tiring work someone needs to step up and take the lead.
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