Week_7

Visiting a Home for Persons with Challenges For this assignment, I went to a private facility called The Rainbow House. The Rainbow House is ran by a set of sister in laws who opened up the facility in 2005. It was opened after one of their sons was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at the age of twenty two. According to Mrs. Williams, she had looked around the area to see who could help care for her son while she was at work, or when she was out running errands. There was no such thing around in the surrounding area. Her sister in law Mrs. Tyler volunteered to help out. She started out doing it just three times a week and sometimes early on Saturday mornings. When Mrs. Williams decided to completely retire early, her sister in law still wanted to help out. At that time, another of their church members had a son who had severe seizures. The mother was a single mom, who was trying to hold down a job and take care of two other children as well. Since it was summer, the two volunteered to give respite care on the weekends and during the day while she was at work since he could not be left alone. As time went on word had gotten around about the two helping out the mother. Another family who lived in the next county heard about them and asked if they could be put on their waiting list. They explained that they were only taking care of two people, and they really didn’t have a waiting list because it was only the two of them working. Seeing how disappointed the family was, they decided to help out. At this time, they decided that they might needed someone else to help care as well. They asked around and soon another person was hired on staff. After taking time out to look around and talk to their minister, they decided to open up a house that would be for the purpose of taking of children and young adults who had severe disabilities and their families needed help caring for them. They decided to call it “The Rainbow House”. Currently there are twelve full time placements at the home, and four respite care placements. The house has accommodations for several types of disabilities. They have wheel chair ramps for clients who are confined to wheelchairs. The hallways are all wider with bars and handles so the clients can hold on to them for support as they walk in them. The bathrooms have bars in them as well in the showers so they are accessible as well for the clients. The bedrooms all have video cameras that installed, so the night shift workers can observe and can notice if something is wrong during the night. After talking to some of the workers, I learned that the clients have the same basic needs as others. Sometimes, the workers are responsible for taking the clients to the doctor. Others help teach them basic needs such as learning to walk by themselves, or taking care of personal needs. The Rainbow House hopes to open up a smaller house later next year to help students learn independent living skills who past the age of seventeen.