A practical staff management package for use in a training program for persons with developmental disabilities.
A staff management package was investigated for increasing and maintaining behavioral training skills of direct-care staff. Behaviors of three direct-care staff members were monitored while they conducted a prevocational program with 27 adult clients with severe or profound mental retardation. The intervention was an easy-to-apply checklist used weekly by a supervisor to give feedback to direct-care staff. The management procedure did not require the supervisor to collect quantitative data to be graphed or charted. Use of the checklist during a weekly morning work session in a multiple-baseline design across subjects led to immediate improvement in staff performance during daily morning work sessions. Considerable generalization of improved staff performance to daily afternoon work sessions with a different client group occurred. Further increases in staff performance occurred when the management procedure was added to afternoon work sessions. Staff performance was maintained over 4 months after the management procedure was decreased from weekly to biweekly use. When performance of direct-care staff improved, on-task behavior of most clients also substantially increased. Direct-care staff preferred the staff management package compared to "traditional" methods of supervision, and the training unit adopted the checklist for continuous use at the conclusion of the study.