Introduction

Examples of past mistakes on the part of helping professionals when they’ve made assumptions about physical healthcare needs, mental healthcare needs, and placement and service needs of elders.

Mistakes to avoid when assessing for placement and service needs.

Self-assessment to look at our own assumptions about aging, disabilities in aging, placements available to seniors, and services available to seniors. (Hopefully engaging audience participation.)

Examine facts about aging, disabilities in aging, and placements and services available to the elderly in Iowa.

Understand the context in which placement and services are available for seniors in Iowa, looking at availability, entrance requirements, financial requirements, and assistance provided.

Discuss the assessment process for helping seniors and their loved ones discover what services and/or placements are right for them including learning the “easy” questions to answer during this assessment process.

Explore each of these “easy” questions of the assessment process.

As part of exploring these “easy” questions, thoroughly cover the steps needed to assess and discover the elders’ needs now and in the future by using two theories, Person in the Environment and Human Behavior in the Social Environment.

Thoroughly explore and address the areas addressed in these two theories pertaining to seniors’ needs.

• Biologicial
• Personality
• Life History
• Physical Environment
• Mental Health
• Addiction/Dependency/Substance Abuse Issues
• Cultural
• Spiritual
• Family Systems
• Community Involvement/Supportive Persons
• Financial Circumstances
• Professional Medical and Mental Health Support Agencies
• Local, State, and Federal Assistance Programs and Agencies

Discuss case examples. (Hopefully involving audience participation.)

Learn how to create an assessment to help seniors and their families while they are considering services and placements in their area.

Learn how to match the seniors’ needs with the services and placements available allowing an individualized checklist of needs for the seniors and their loved ones to use while looking for appropriate placements and services in their geographical area.

Using previous case examples, create checklist of needs. (Hopefully with audience participation.)

Wrap Up and Evaluation