PAS program eyed to help persons with disabilities

The CNMI Choice Program, through the CNMI Council on Developmental Disabilities, has been funded to initiate a Personal Assistance Services or PAS pilot project to promote direct support and services for people with disabilities. This will be accomplished through a collaboration and partnership with the Northern Marianas College to bring new support and service to the CNMI residents with severe disabilities who need personal assistance services at home or at work.

Personal assistance services, according to the World Institute on Disability, are those services provided to assist people in carrying out tasks they would typically perform for themselves if a disability were not present. Traditionally” PAS include hands-on activities such as bathing, dressing, help with toileting, and transferring between the bed and wheelchair or wheelchair and car. Other typical forms of assistance involve housecleaning, doing laundry, shopping, and driving the person with a disability. PAS is direct support services for persons with disabilities.

People have come to understand that personal assistance services include any support a person needs to maintain her/his independence. This support may include assisting a parent with a child-related task (such as diapering), helping an individual with money management, or translating someone’s speech or behaviors that may be hard to understand.

Personal assistance services cut across all category lines. PAS may be used not only by persons who have the more familiar physical disabilities but also by those who have age-related disabilities, behavior-related disabilities, blindness, (acquired) brain injury, deafness, mental retardation, developmental disabilities, or a need for mental health services.

These are but a few of the creative ways PAS can enhance the lives of persons of all ages and enable them to more fully live lives of independence and inclusion within our community, according to the guide book, Taking Charge: A Hands-On Guide To Personal Assistance Services.

The CNMI Council on Developmental Disabilities through the CNMI Choice Program has initiated its first meeting last month with David Attao of NMC regarding the idea to partner in accordance to the Real Choice Systems Change Community Living Grant Application approved and awarded to the Council by the US Centers on Medicare and Medicaid Services in 2002.

The goal of the project is to develop a PAS Certification Program that will train at least eight individuals who wish to make PAS a profession and earn an income, according to CNMI Council on Developmental Disabilities executive director Thomas J. Camacho..

These eight individuals training and services will be paid for and compensated from the CNMI Choice Program funds and shall last until Sept. 30, 2005 when the grant expires.