In today’s episode we hear from Natalie McKenzie about the role and skills of trained Rehabilitation Assistants (RAs), who can provide valuable insights on clients, inform care team colleagues, and advocate on a client’s behalf. She offers us great tips and advice on supervision, fostering positive relationships, contracting, wellbeing, and dealing with discriminatory behaviour from clients.
Keywords:
support workers, rehabilitation assistants, RAs, brain injury, cognitive rehabilitation, BIS Services, TBI, ABI, functional skills, behaviour, thoughts, mood, metacognition, data, collaborative, MDT, case managers, strategic, operational, sense of the client, qualitative, supervision, authority, advocate, clinical contracting, expectations, referral, matching, staff wellbeing, mental health, discrimination, cultural challenges, mutual respect, BIS Training Academy, Independent Living Assessment
2:00 Natalie introduces herself and her company
5:30 Support worker vs rehabilitation assistant
8:00 How they train RAs
9:42 The importance of supervision and evidencing decision making
13:00 Getting insights on the client from your RA
16:00 Case study
18:00 Informing the rest of the team about the nuances in client care
20:35 Respecting the skills of the RA
23:00 Difference a good relationship with the RA can make
26:00 RA as client advocate26:46 Clinical contracting
32:07 Investing in staff wellbeing
37:40 Dealing with discriminatory behaviour from clients
39:40 Three tips
43:00 Investing in training and skills
Quotes:
7:20 “For us, the big difference is in not doing for, but doing with. It’s enabling functional skills.”
15:05 “Relying on the information coming in from the RAs is so pivotal.”
18:46 “Not everything can be scored! Sometimes you need to work with your support team to find out what is going on with your client.”
Guest: Natalie MacKenzie, BIS Services
www.thebiss.co.uk | @thecognitiverehabcoach
Presenter: Dr Shabnam Berry-Khan, Director of PsychWorks Associates
Editor: Emily Crosby Media
