Staff Members' Prediction of Consequences for Their Work in Residential Settings

Abstract

Staff members supporting people with mental retardation in residential care were given scenarios describing tasks they might carry out and asked what would happen if they did, or failed to do, them (i.e., who would notice, what would their reaction be). Only a minority reported strong, certain consequences for anything they did from residents, families, or external professionals. Although a majority reported consequences from managers or coworkers, a large minority did not. The tasks for which most staff members reported consequences were administration, followed by enabling residents. Results suggest that staff members who give priority to administration may be responding to the contingencies established by their managers and that a shift in priorities may be required to improve staff members' interactions with clients.

Improving Quality of Life Outcomes in Supported Accommodation for People with Intellectual Disability: What Makes a Difference?

“…For example, Mansell et al (1994) proposed that managers need to give staff clear and consistent messages about the expectation that their practice will reflect organizational values that put service user quality-of-life outcomes at the centre of everything they do. While there is no evidence to support this proposition, Mansell & Elliott (2001) found that onesixth of staff said that they thought no one would notice what they did with service users -good or bad, and that the activity with the biggest consequences from managers was whether they were completing the paperwork correctly. More particularly, there are propositions about the positive influence, in terms of improving and maintaining good staff practice, if front-line management incorporates all or some of the elements of practice leadership.…”

Practice Leadership at the Front Line in Supporting People with Intellectual Disabilities and Challenging Behaviour: A Qualitative Study of Registered Managers of Community‐based, Staffed Group homes

“…employing and external agencies) provide expectations and consequences that focus upon formal administrative work potentially leaving little space for PL e.g. working with staff to develop AS (Mansell & Elliott, 2001;Lowe & Jones, 2006). Research focussed upon the incentive context for RM would be useful.…”

Active support: A critical review and commentary

“…Anecdotal evidence suggests that increased resident engagement can be motivating for staff, although other evidence indicates that staff may experience consequences from management for paperwork rather than for enabling resident activity (Mansell & Elliott, 2001). One potentially important issue is the resident engagement ''payoff'' for staff assistance: how much resident engagement is obtained for one unit of staff assistance?…”