Eight individuals to be chosen for PAS training

The CNMI Council on Developmental Disabilities is now finalizing the project design for the Personal Assistance Services pilot project, after which it will recruit and select eight individuals who will be trained to assist people in carrying out tasks they would typically perform for themselves if a disability were not present.

Council executive director Thomas J. Camacho said 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.

Upon completion of the training, each individual trainee will have the necessary skills of a PAS provider.

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.

Individuals with disabilities and the elderly will also be trained on the their role and responsibilities as future employers. For example, developing a PAS duties and responsibilities, taxes, hiring and management process, protection including dismissal, while PAS providers will learn the techniques of the services including sensitivity, people first language, abuse, neglect and laws covering protections of people with disabilities, according to Camacho.

The Council said it believes the CNMI has an obligation to provide services to people with disabilities in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs. PAS will prevent establishing institutions such as nursing homes and other institutional settings event against their will and people with disabilities have the right to such support and services in the community under the integrated mandate of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, said Camacho.

“Because such direct support is practically a new concept here in the CNMI, the Council is taking a pro-active role in initiating such project design to promote independence, productivity, integration and inclusion in our society,” he said.

As to questions of who will pay, generally, the CNMI would if such financial support is available through the Medicaid waiver and Medicare program.

Other possible sources of funding and support are: Office on Aging (which administers the Older Americans Act), children services, private insurance, Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, and other various programs such as the Community Guidance Center (formerly division of mental health that administers social services block grants) and Veteran’s Affairs Office for people who were injured in the line of duty and need PAS.

According to a survey, almost 12.6 million Americans require some assistance to help them dress, eat, go to the bathroom, clean house, move from bed to a wheelchair, remember to take medication, and to perform other activities that make it possible for them to live at home. PAS is also known as personal care services, personal attendant services or personal care assistance.