It was an Put-in-Order Kind of Day

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Morning... We slept pretty good, except for the part we have to put ourselves down to bed again every 3 hours. The good part was that in all, it appears we slept almost 9 hours. That has to be a new record!

*Sigh* We’ve been going over it in our heads, but seem to be getting confused. We’re going to try it one more time. We’re trying to figure out what time to stop writing so we can go to our medical appointment. Ok ... Appointment is at 9:45. Figure 45 minutes to drive plus an extra 15, because its rush hour. That be 8:45. We don’t know where the appointment is at the University and its, but that its going to be a longer walk cuz its somewhere in the hospital. That would make it 8:15. But we need to stop at cash station because we don’t have enough for parking that would be 8:00. Means we should take our shower at 7:30. Then it would mean we should stop writing at 7:15. Hmm, takes us that long to edit, better stop writing at 7:00. Hmm, But, it’s already 6:00. Shoot, better be thinking a little faster ... have just an hour!

Let’s see ... now to figure out yesterday. I’m not sure if it could be considered a real good day. Sr. Was being nice, it’s just that our mind(s) were confused and in need of superceding order into the system. We were trying to get a handle on exactly what we were supposed to be doing, especially given the part of only having 4 more days, before we’ll be off a couple of weeks. Like to think too that we might take work home for the second week.

We had some things that were done in the line of real work activities. We corrected my time sheet, wrote and distributed behavioral advice on one of the individuals, checked files, did lunches, worked on Qnotes, reviewed case referrals, and re-determinations, talked with the referral source, and rewrote a job description for position of Aide to DSP. But after that ... our time was spent trying to figure out all of what was happening.

In the process, we started jotting down what we were doing in our organizer program. Then we checked for what is happening in each of our project areas we were supposed to cover Monday through Wednesday and we did some calculations of time. In the end, we made sort of a schedule for the last two days - but, in the past tense.

I thinkwhere we got confused was that ... we had had everything in order, but then the state/PAS decided to change EVERYTHING around. This affected my project areas of preparing client annuals, intake, and CARF. And, to make it worse, Sr. decided she needed more time to go over the report we’d submitted her the night before. Really, really need her to progress that task, so we can seek out answers that affect all these areas with the guy at PAS.

I also need her to announce the change with staff training so we can make necessary changes before July 1. It might seem a ways off, but I’ll be out most of the latter half of May and I will need June to be writing the Center’s Annual Report and preparing for the start of the Client Annual Reports WITH new rules. There’s no time to be stalling at this point. Yesterday, she made a comment saying that we had extra time now so could help her out with something, but it made me wonder only which planet she was coming from!

So, we submitted to her two days of our schedule (accounting for the present tasks accomplished with what needs to be done next).

We also attached to the Tuesday copy a report of client contacts and concerns we have for the people on our caseload. It is kind of an invisible rule, but we figure that we should come in contact with all 20 of them somewhere in the course of a day. I surprised myself with the knowledge that we really do "meet" them all, or gain a new reference point each day.

I think basically what I do with my clients (and many of the other Q’s) is to try and progress some situation with each of them. This is made a little easier in that we help Sr. to watch over them the half hour of eating/leisure. The other big contact point is in coming in and out of rooms all day to be taking care of small tasks. I really do have a good sense where the clients are at. I think, at least. But not with deeper issues that I might understand better if the Qnotes were kept up.

I’m feeling at this point very restless for having to take time away from the clients and events that make up my normal time. I am NOT looking forward to time off, as I might be.

Ok, ok ... calm down. Maybe one more time over the big critical projects on the table? We need to learn the new rules from State/PAS. We need to be concerned with the reports that may be due by the first of our staffings July 6th. We need to be concerned with inviting ISSA people toeach of the staffings. We’ve had minimal issues contact with Sr. Tess. We’ve completed the first read-through of the rules, then more thoroughly, then analyzed them and completed a written summary with what we thought we knew, and what he haven’t figured out yet.We submitted the summary to Sr. Tess and our referral source, and are waiting for a 3-way call with the PAS manager.

One specific question is for the regular annuals, do we have to complete each year the list of tasks that are now to take place with the intake clients. Also, we need to clarify who the ISSA people are and if they are going to be available for the staffings of the four individuals already scheduled for July. We also need to now clarify what the eligibility dates are for Medicaid Waivers, and if these dates will change the order of the 24 staffings I already have scheduled out for the entire year. I also need to be concerned with getting preference interviews and observations started in June for the meetings that will begin in July.

I figure that CARF is on hold, but that the next step is to cut/paste new program goals and benchmarks (made on Saturday) to previous Performance Analysis Report. I also need to identify how clients abilities, strengths, needs, and preferences are going to affect the report. I need to plan out a new series of goals and objectives for the next season starting July 1 and we need to check if there will be outside goals from the state or PAS that we will have to include in the reports. I need to be in a better position with the Performance Analysis so I can report on it with the Annual Report.

Hmm, I think that’s basically it. There are two bottlenecks that both involve Sr. Tess. She needs to read the summary, so we can ask questions of the PAS agent, and she needs to announce the changeover in Staff Training, so I can begin to prepare. Maybe this is part of the frustration and confusion I felt yesterday. I wanted to progress things, but felt stuck ... in that there bottleneck. Maybe Sr. will have time to catch up with us a bit by the time I get back to work either this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Pshwew ... I sure do hope so.

Nothing more to do this morning though, except to get this other part of the day over with. Not looking forward to that in the least! Trying not to whimper, trying not to whimper.