We Believe in Community-Based Mental Health
We invite new ideas and partnerships with other thought leaders to help us develop better, more integrated and innovative solutions. Through strategic collaborations, we further reduce administrative and clinical inefficiencies while improving access to and the quality of care for those constituents that require effective community-based living supports. To all of our clients, employees and community partners, thank you for all that you do to improve the livelihoods of those we serve! Darren W. Hodgdon, CEO Beacon Specialized Living Services, Inc.
I N N O V AT I O N
At Beacon, we are very proud of the work we do in collaboration with all of the outstanding community agencies we are so fortunate to work with. Together, we are serving adults requiring specialized mental health services and successfully filling a long-standing and critical gap in the managed-healthcare system.
WHO WE ARE A N D W H AT W E D O
Beacon Specialized Living is the largest specialized adult service provider in the State of Michigan serving adults with a variety of mental illnesses, developmental disabilities, behaviors and chronic conditions. We employ over 600 people including more than 25 master-prepared, nurses or physician leaders. We are one of a handful of Joint Commission Behavioral Health Accredited providers in the state (the gold standard for patient safety and quality of care). Every day, we collaborate closely with over 40 Community Health Agencies and their professional staffs to ensure that exceptional and compassionate care is delivered respectfully, consistently and safely. We monitor our effectiveness, track our outcomes and set our priorities to achieve the mutual goals established in each clients Behavior Treatment Plan including: • Ensuring the safety, health and welfare of our clients • Minimizing aggressive and adverse behaviors • Increasing engagement in activities of daily living • Improving social skills and community involvement • Achieving medication compliance above 90% • Delivering top of license and appropriate care
THE BEACON
S U R V I VA L K I T As part of our training, we provide materials to our new recruits including the visualization sheet of these helpful tools. P R O V I D E D T O E V E R Y N E W E M P L O Y E E T H AT JOINS THE BEACON TEAM:
Crayon: to make your future colorful and bright Paper Clip: to help you hold it all together Rubber Band: for when your limits are stretched Marbles: to replace any that you may lose Eraser: to erase any mistakes, we all make them Balloon: to help you reach for the sky Money: to remind you that you are valuable Pack of Gum: to remind you to stick with it Safety Pin: for times when you need to fasten your lips Candle: to help you shine and guide you on your journey
INTEGRITY
We recently took our clients to the movies to see Christopher Robin after our staff contacted the local cinema and coordinated an outing with the owner. We were shocked to find out that the theater was so willing to accommodate our autistic group of clients. To our surprise, the owner provided a private showing where we had an entire theater to ourselves! The sound and lights were adjusted as needed for our residents who are very sensitive to loud sounds. The cinema staff ushered everyone to our seats and then brought us popcorn and sodas. The outing was a huge success and residents were so excited by the whole experience. Community inclusion can be a challenge for our autistic residents, but we know how important it is to their progress. Both residents and staff enjoyed the movie with no issues or concerns. “We asked our community for help, and again, good people rose to the occasion.” For that, we are grateful. —MALKA, BEACON HOME MANAGER
— E M I LY, B E A C O N D I S T R I C T M A N A G E R
C O M PA S S I O N
When Joe was on his way for the first time, our staff was a bit worried when we learned that he had a history of being very aggressive, using staff daily as his punching bag and destroying his previous homes on a regular basis. When he arrived, all of the resident’s took to Joe instantly as did our staff. He then struggled with this new environment for about two weeks and required 1:1 staffing. Once this was provided, Joe and our staff established a much better relationship. He often sits and ponders about moving to a new home and says he doesn’t want to. Over time since joining us, he has substantially reduced his physical aggression and property destruction to very minor incidents. He is now seeking out our staff and states regularly that he misses them when they’re not with him. Last week when sitting on the porch with our night staff, Joe looked around at everyone and stated, “I came here and didn’t have any friends, now look all of you are my friends.” Joe has improved remarkably and really values the independence he now has. The positive relationships he built with our staff has really helped us with other clients too. He is a real positive contributor to our home today.
ADVOCACY
On Sam’s 18th birthday he celebrated at school and had a great day, but when he got off the bus that afternoon he was taken by the police to the psychiatric ward of his local hospital. His parents were no longer legally required to care for him, and they did not want him in their home any longer than required. They had declined filing for guardianship but continued to exert enough psychological control that without their permission, he would not speak to anyone or sign anything. As an 18-year old with no guardian, no identification, no income and a diagnosis that indicates a need for assistance to keep himself healthy and safe, his immediate future looked grim. Beacon was asked to provide a home for Sam and we immediately began teaching him about his rights. Now, when I walk into his home, Sam greets me with a smile, talks about his day and is very excited about starting school again. Sam is also excited to begin volunteering at a local veterinary office where he will assist in caring for the animals. —ELLA, BEACON DIRECTOR OF AUTISM PROGRAMS
We had another resident who had bounced in and out of AFC homes since he was 16 before coming to Beacon. While unpacking his things with him one of our staff said, “Would you like to meet the rest of the family?” This resident started crying because he had never heard of an AFC home calling everyone “family.” But, that is exactly what we are—family! —JENNIFER, BEACON HOME MANAGER
RESPECT
We received a resident at our home and during his admission he was proud to let us know he had NOT taken a shower or had groomed in over a year. Hearing that, we made it a priority to prompt him numerous times throughout the day to shower. Within the month, we were able to get him in the shower. He also let us take him to the hair salon to get a nice haircut and beard trim. This was noticed not only by his family but by his case manager who could not believe we were able to accomplish this. He is still hesitant to shower but with enough trust and prompting we are able to get him to shower regularly!
EXCELLENCE
When he came to us he was demonstrating physical aggression 4–5 times a day. Within months his physical aggression was reduced to an average of 2–3 minutes, maybe once a week. I took the time to study his aggressive behaviors, identify his triggers and worked together with our staff on a plan to diffuse them. From a root cause evaluation, we noted his behaviors on Monday nights between 8 pm and 8:30 pm would peak. One night, I noticed some clients were watching WWE on television and that the TV was on a shared wall with his bedroom. When I went into his room to check on him, I could hear the TV and other clients in the living room. Knowing that one of his triggers is loud noise, we moved him to a quieter room and his behaviors improved immediately and in fact, never happened again. Today, his aggressive behaviors have been reduced to 2–3 minutes in a 24-hour time frame and we are now successfully working with him on his other goals. — J U D Y, B E A C O N H O M E M A N A G E R
In the final weeks of his life we went to the Air Zoo, because he loved planes, Clementine’s, Jet’s pizza, movies, Subway and anywhere he wanted to go. He told me on many occasions that he loved me and I loved him as well. At the end of the day, I know we made a positive impact on his life and he made a positive impact on me as well. —TRIVENNA, BEACON HOME MANAGER
DIGNITY
We had a client that was really upset because he did not know how to read. So I ordered several Hooked on Phonics books and printed out a lot of worksheets for him. Every day I would work with him and help him learn how to read different words and books. This continued for months and he really did well not only learning how to read but his confidence was clearly better too. Every year we bought him a new book and took him out for a meal on his birthday. Unfortunately, this client had severe kidney disease and he refused to allow anyone to bathe him but he allowed me to.
BEST PRACTICES
We have a client who came to us about a month ago and appeared to be overly medicated. She was sleeping a majority of her day away and did not appear very motivated to complete her goals. We referred her to our staff psychiatrist who had several sessions with this client that led to a med change. Almost overnight, she has made a great turn around. Every day she now wakes up and stays out of bed all day! She continually completes her ADLs, participates in her work program, goes into the community and assists the staff with cooking and house chores. She regularly socializes with peers and does activities in the home. We have also noticed she is giving staff hugs and just seems very upbeat and happy. Recently, she met with our psychiatrist again and was so excited that she is lowering her current medication regimen. —REBECCA, BEACON HOME MANAGER
—ALISA, BEACON HOME MANAGER
C L I N I C A L C O O R D I N AT I O N
Many of our new residents have a long history of frequently going to the ED for psychological reasons. I am so proud of our staff for pulling together and diligently looking for any signs of abnormal behaviors, immediately coordinating PCP appointments for any health issue and communicating with management about any out of the ordinary symptoms. With everyone’s help, we have not had one resident require a psychiatric hospital stay in three months and we have also been able to decrease ED visits for physical health reasons substantially by getting them the health care they need immediately.
C O M M U N I T Y I N T E G R AT I O N
One of our residents just recently started a Day Program. His guardian was hesitant as he has tried them in the past and things hadn’t gone well. Whenever he makes up his mind about what he wants to do, if it doesn’t happen, he gets very angry. This time we spoke to him about the benefits of participating; getting out of the home, seeing new faces and earning money, all the things that lined up perfectly with his goals. Shortly after dropping him off, we received a call from the director of the program. He said our resident was upset that they were doing fun activities most of the day and only working for a short time. He then requested that we come pick him up since he did not want to participate. Our staff spoke with him and asked him to identify the parts of the program that he did not like and why he did not like them. They encouraged him to try out the Just for Fun activities, reminding him that life is not all about work and money and if he were to come home he would miss the activities he likes. He agreed to try and our staff spoke with the director explaining that asking him for assistance when changing the trash or other small tasks would help keep him busy and make him feel useful and appreciated. The director agreed and our resident was able to stay the full day and enjoyed the events even though they were a little different than what he had expected. — S H AY N A , B E A C O N H O M E M A N A G E R
Over time, he demonstrated great improvements including positive and respectful behaviors in the home and keeping busy each day working around the home and helping staff. As a result of his hard work and our support, we worked with his CMH case manager and transitioned back to the trailer he owns to live an independent life with minimal supervision. — L E R O Y, B E A C O N M S C L I N I C I A N
C O L L A B O R AT I O N
One of our CMH case managers contacted me to discuss a new resident’s treatment plan. He was diagnosed with a significant mood disorder and suffered a traumatic brain injury. He had some issues in his past that involved inappropriate behaviors and spent considerable time in jail, was hospitalized and declared not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity related to recent incidents. During his 10 month stay at Beacon, this client participated daily in our programs including Seeking Safety and Dialectical Group Behavior Therapy where he became a skills master. He enjoyed his individual therapy, worked independently at our Beacon company store and worked on his personcentered goals with his home staff and clinicians who supported him as a team.
E M PAT H Y
We have a resident with Autism who lost many of his personal effects in a home fire. He has limited verbal skills and struggles communicating his feelings and his needs at times, especially when he is frustrated or overwhelmed. He loves Grover from Sesame Street and our staff recently bought him a new Grover to replace his loss. While working with him, we noticed he was able to verbalize through Grover what he wanted and how he was feeling. Since this point, he has been less aggressive and able to better express his feelings and what caused a specific incident to occur. He now participates regularly in home activities and exhibits much more appropriate behaviors. While he continues to struggle at times, we know firsthand that paying attention to small details in the lives of our clients really helps reveal little keys that unlock many triggers of poor or dangerous behaviors. This is what we love best about our jobs. — D AY N A , B E A C O N M S C L I N I C I A N A N D C H E RY L , B E A C O N B E H AV I O R I S T
IMPROVED
B E H AV I O R O U T C O M E S Medication Compliance: 82% of residents at Beacon with medication compliance problems were 90% or more compliant with their medications within the first 30 days of treatment at Beacon. Psychiatric Symptom Management: Within 30 days from admission, 84% of residents at Beacon with significant psychiatric symptoms demonstrated improvement 80% of the time. Coping Skills: Within 60 days, 84% of residents demonstrated successful coping skills 80% or more of the time. In that same time-frame, 49% demonstrated successful coping skills 90% or more of the time. Social Skills: Within 30 days, 53% of the residents demonstrated successful socialization skills on a daily basis 85% or more of the time. Within 60 days, 71% of the residents were demonstrating successful socialization skills 85% or more of the time. Relief of Aggressive Behaviors: Beacon helped residents with aggressive behaviors to relieve those aggressive behaviors within 30 days with 91% of residents demonstrating no aggressive behaviors 85% of the time or more. Anger Management: 84% of residents with persistent anger management problems demonstrated no angry outbursts 80% of the time or more, within 60 days from admission. 47% demonstrated nearly no angry outbursts.
IMPROVED
FUNCTION AND ENGAGEMENT Personal Hygiene and Grooming: Many residents have problems with hygiene. Within 120 days, 30% of residents demonstrated good personal hygiene and grooming 75% of the time or more. Community Reintegration Activities: Within 30 days from admission, 65% of residents in need of community reintegration participated in community activities 80% of the time or more. This number increases to 71% within 60 days and 82% within 120 days. Physical Health Management and Improvement: Within 60 days, 54% of residents having significant physical health management problems demonstrated successful physical health management 80% of the time or more. Personalized Goal Areas (Patient Driven): Goals are personalized to each resident and most residents have specific personal goals that vary in scope and type. When considered as a whole, within 120 days, 68% of residents demonstrated that they have achieved their personal goal 80% of the time or more. Staff attention to helping residents achieve their specific individualized is very inclusive, with only 9% of residents failing to achieve their individualized goal to at least a degree of 60%.
Primary Services Residential-based community living supports for adults with severe mental illness, IDD, autism, Alzheimer’s, dementia, substance use disorder or complex chronic conditions that required assistance with every day living skills. Joint Commission Accredited Behavioral Health Care Accreditation Facilities (AFC) Michigan’s largest provider of specialized adult foster care with over 550 beds throughout the state.
BEACON OVERVIEW
Founded 1998
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