Direct Support and Long-term Care Providers
This eLearning series is designed for those who provide direct care, such as personal attendant services, nursing facility services, or home health care to older people and those with disabilities. These brief (less than 30 minutes) modules provide practical strategies to help you better understand and assist people with mental health or substance use conditions, challenging behaviors, chronic pain, or traumatic past experiences.
Module 1: Navigating Agitation and Challenging Behaviors
Module Overview
This module offers tools and strategies to help care providers understand, anticipate, and manage agitation and challenging behaviors. You will learn how agitation and challenging behaviors are forms of communication, develop strategies for approaching individuals who are agitated and/or exhibiting challenging behaviors, and identify strategies for de-escalating agitated individuals and addressing disruptive behaviors.
Module 2: Changing Challenging Behaviors
Module Overview
This module builds from the knowledge explored in Module 1: Navigating Agitation and Challenging Behaviors, which we strongly encourage is completed before starting. In this module, you will learn about two interventions that have proven successful in transforming difficult behaviors into more adaptive ones. These include: Positive Behavior Support (PBS) and Choice Making.
We recommend taking this module after you have completed Module 1: Navigating Agitation and Challenging Behaviors.
Module 3: Introduction to Trauma Informed Care
Module Overview
This module introduces trauma and trauma-informed care (TIC) to those who work in any capacity in the field of long-term services and supports. You will learn about the ways that psychological trauma affects the people you help each day. You’ll gain an understanding of the impact of trauma on survivors, including ways that survivors might respond in a healthcare setting, their home, or in social interactions. We will also discuss the key principles of TIC and explore strategies for helping trauma survivors. Finally, you will learn self-care strategies to use when working with trauma survivors.
Module 4: Trauma Informed Care for the Aging Population
Module Overview
This module will discuss how trauma manifests as people get older, types of trauma senior adults experience, the impact of childhood or early-life trauma on senior adults, and the warning signs of trauma. You will also learn strategies for working with senior adult trauma survivors and how to take a trauma-informed approach to care when working with older adults.
We recommend taking this module after you have completed Module 3: Introduction to Trauma Informed Care.
Module 5: Introduction to Substance Use Disorders
Module Overview
In this module, you will learn how to tell the difference between a substance use disorder (SUD) and non-problematic substance related behaviors, factors that put people at risk for developing issues with substance use, how people recover from substance misuse, and practical ways to approach people about substance use concerns.
Module 6: Substance Use Disorders in Older Adults
Module Overview
This module will discuss substance use disorders (SUD) in older adults. You’ll learn to: identify reasons why an older adult might not recognize they have a problem with substance use, recognize what substance misuse might look like in an aging individual, differentiate between various risk levels of substance use, and apply strategies for talking about substance use with those in your care.
We recommend taking this module after you have completed Module 5: Introduction to Substance Use Disorders.
Module 7: Taking a Trauma-Informed Approach to Substance Use Disorders
Module Overview
In this module, you will explore the impact of trauma on survivors living with a substance use disorder (SUD). You will learn how trauma affects the brain and how trauma can lead to substance use. We’ll talk about how substances can be used to cope with trauma. You’ll also evaluate the roles stigma and shame play in the lives of trauma survivors with SUDs. By the end of this module, you will know effective ways to take a trauma-informed care (TIC) approach to support these individuals.
We recommend taking this module after you have completed Module 5: Introduction to Substance Use Disorders.
Module 8: Practical Strategies for Supporting People with Chronic Pain
Module Overview
In this module, you will learn how you can support individuals who live with chronic pain. The primary goal is to equip you with practical strategies that will support your day-to-day work. You will discuss how chronic pain relates to different areas of a person’s life, including physical discomfort, challenges in relationships, activities of daily living, behavioral and mental health, trauma). There will also be a discussion about tangible and practical strategies you can put into practice to help those you support.