Welcome to The Connecting Point Mailing List Archives
The Connecting Point
Volume 3 Issue 20 February 16th, 2006
In This ISSUE:
- Educational Advocates for Washington State Foster Children
- A Benefits Check Up Online Screening Service
- Washington State Home Health Care Authority Registry - The Registry
- Personal Assistance Training Website for Consumers Employing,
- Supporting and Retaining Your personal Care Assistant, a Workshop curriculum for people with disabilities
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1) Educational Advocates for Washington State Foster Children - Children in foster care sometimes need extra help navigating through the school system. Those children and their foster parents now have adults hired by the state to do that job. Educational advocates have been hired for each of the six regions of Children's Administration. They can provide direct advocacy, consultation as well as information and referral services on school-related issues such as enrollment, school discipline, school communication conflicts, special education and others.
If you or the children in your care need those services or others related to education, contact the child's social worker, who can access the coordinators.
For more information about this new program, click on the foster parent web site, http://www1.dshs.wa.gov/ca/fosterparents/
2 ) A Benefits Check Up Online Screening Service - BenefitsCheckUp quickly gives you a personal report of public programs and benefits that you may qualify for. It helps thousands of people every day to connect to government programs that can help them pay for prescription drugs, health care, utilities, and other needs. 
http://ssl1.benefitscheckup.org/index.cfm?link=dltca
If you have Medicare, it is recommend you start with the new BenefitsCheckUpRx. Find out what you need to know before signing up for the new Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage or other prescription savings programs. https://ssl1.benefitscheckup.org/before_you_start.cfm?cfid=1857602&cftoken=89445059&source_id=4&prev_id=0&org_id=380&partner_id=0&subset_id=0&language_id=EN&access_id=0&client_id=NULL&user_id=NULL&test_id=0
BenefitsCheckUpRx for People Without Medicare - helps you learn about and enroll in valuable public and private programs that can save you money on health care and prescription drugs. Click below to learn whether you are likely to qualify for State Pharmacy Assistance Programs, Company Patient Assistance Programs and other important federal and state programs.
3 ) Washington State Personal Care Provider Registry - is a customized internet based system designed to match the needs of publicly funded in-home consumers with pre-qualified individual personal care providers.
The Registry can provide consumers with a referral, listing the names of screened providers. Upon receiving the list, the consumer of service (employer) is responsible for calling, interviewing and selecting the provider of her/his choice. Final authorization of services is approved by the employer's case manager.
Currently the Referral Registry is operating in the following counties:
Snohomish, Spokane, Whitman, Ferry, Stevens, Pend Oreille, Lewis, Mason, Thurston, Yakima, Kittitas, Franklin, Walla Walla, Columbia, Garfield, Asotin, Benton, Pierce, Kitsap, Whatcom, Skagit, Island and San Juan. Expanded service in other counties is anticipated in the future.
In order to use the registry site you will need to fill out an application request and then you will be able to choose a login and password for access to the provider information. For more information and access to the registry, complete an application request or call Registry staff at 1-800-970-5456. https://fortress.wa.gov/hcqa/referralregistry/hcqa/Default.aspx
4 Personal Assistance Training Website for Consumers - You may need someone to help you with tasks that you can't do because you have a disability or a chronic condition. But you want to live as independently as possible. This web site will provide help for you to do so. You will find information on hiring, training and working with a personal assistant that will help you. Here are some other things that you will find on this site.
- Ttraining pages that help you to train your personal assistant
- Tools that will help you to assess your needs, do job ads, create a task checklist, a work agreement and other things
- Links to other sites that may help you
- Resources that will provide additional information:
- For more information: http://www.pascenter.org/pas_users/index_old.php
5) Employing, Supporting and Retaining Your personal Care Assistant, a Workshop curriculum for people with disabilities - Prepared by the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute (PHI) and funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The curriculum covers the phases: 1) Orientation – to help consumers define their needs & explore service options to meet needs. 2) The Hiring Process 3) Supervising. The complete curriculum can be downloaded and includes activities for all sections.
http://www.directcareclearinghouse.org/download/PHIConsumerModule.pdf