New RN working in Group Home

[AddieRN]

Hi all. I'm a new RN (4 months under my belt), I just took a job working in a group home. I'm not new to the group home, I worked there for almost 3 years while in nursing school, and I am familiar with all the clients their conditions and the staff. It's a group home for developmentally disabled adults. I'm pretty confident that I made a good choice. I care so dearly for all the clients, and look forward to working with them. The other hab-techs who work in the home also care deeply for the clients and take pride in their jobs. I'll mainly be supervising the LPN, handling the paper work and MD orders, etc. We have 6 clients to each home and there are 2. Its really just a small part time job. I plan to keep a full time job though. I was wondering what you all thought of a new RN taking on this responsibility. I was also wondering if any of you other nurses who work in the same type of setting had any advice for me. Thanks!

[dondon44444]

hey,

sounds like things are coming together for you. thats good that they are listening and taking the bp like they should be. i think the inservice is a good idea, but i kind of doubt they will always do a manual bp. i know that the automatic ones are sometimes inaccurate, but sometimes its hard to get them to even take the blood pressure, let alone do it manually. let me know how that turns out, i just know in my houses that would never happen. the people that work at my houses are very good at what they do, but they dont really do things that are "above and beyond" they stick to their job description and if a task falls outside of it, then it will rarely be done. i have a questions, are your people working in the houses in a union? at my company, they are all in a union, everyone that works for them, except me and the managers. they formed a union just for them. im just curious to see the differences between nonunion direct care givers and union ones. ive been so busy lately. i have until the end of december to finish my audits, which have been going well, but i have a few houses that are completely far away from the others. ive got to spend a few days going to these far away areas and hopefully things are going well over there. it would suck if there's lots of problems and people arent filing things correctly. do you have lots of people with pressure ulcers? there's a few in my houses, especially the people confined to the bed. all the other are up and about all the time so we dont have to worry too much about them. are people you work with educated on how to prevent them....turning, putting pillows under their ankles to lift their heels off the bed, etc? how much medical information do they know? are they licensed or just trained in the tasks they have to do? my people dont know much about healthcare. they learn as something comes up, but most of them have no background in it whatsoever, so im always teaching them things, etc. just curious. well, have a good rest of your weekend!! good luck with your audits.

[harpofgrace]

Dear Donna,

Thank you for sharing about working in a group home for mentally challenged persons. I start this Monday &

the interview was rather vague regarding my duties. Your input helped a lot. Any suggestions would be

greatly appreciated. Continued success, Margaret from TX

[EliseM]

Howdy-

I am a new grad and looking for work in public health. I think I would enjoy working in group homes as well and I'm wondering what the best way is to find homes? I have looked online and with the state website(s) but have not had much luck. Any tips for this Californian? Thanks!