April 10, 2018
The DBHDS Board will review and act on the proposed licensing regulations at their meeting tomorrow following a detailed review by the “Committee of the Whole” today. The package presented today by Assistant Commissioner Dev Nair reflected most of the critical issues raised by the comments made and described in our recent
Post:
- Language prohibiting live-in staff in group homes has been removed, though there will be added attention to the level of supervision required by the individuals served especially during the night when, presumably, the live-in is asleep
- The three Levels of Serious Incidents have been better defined and several which were duplicative of other requirements have been removed; it will take time for the CHRIS system to be updated to better align with the new categories
- The requirements for the development of a quality improvement plan, completing specific analysis of the categories of Serious Incidents and systemic risk assessment reviews are the most significant enhancements and are the specific focus of these regulations.
- The language added in the original draft which would have required the “results” of both the criminal background checks and the CPS checks be reviewed prior to the staff being hired has been removed and the procedures will be essentially the same as they are now.
We will have a more detailed analysis when the Regulations are formally released and plan a series of presentations at the Fall Conference to address the more complex issues!