On Saturday, June 8, from 4:30 to 7:00 pm, Hillside House will host our 10th annual fundraising event in the gardens of El Mirador Estate in Montecito.

We would be delighted to share this delightful occasion with you.

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Undaunted by Adversity: Meet Jonathan, Our Newest Resident   

Born several months premature, Jonathan had cerebral palsy, but had to learn early on to be quite independent. Growing up in a large family, he learned to get into his own wheelchair, brush his teeth, and take care of many of his needs on his own by the age of ten.

Jonathan says his teen years were particularly troubled, and he moved around to live with different family members. When he was 21, he started doing some research, advocating for himself, and moved into his first residential care facility. He lived in three facilities before finding Hillside House.

Last summer he spent a week in Oxnard with an aunt and one of his younger brothers, who is 19. At the end of the week, the brother didn't want Jonathan to leave, so Jonathan started looking on the internet for somewhere to live closer to him.

He found Hillside House and arrived here three weeks ago. Although he admits that his plan is to stay for not more than two years, long enough to get a job, save money and move into an apartment with his brother, he likes how active the Hillside House environment is. Nikki, his case manager at Hillside House, has already set up an interview at Kmart for him, and he is very much hoping to get the job. He has worked previously at Target, Walmart and GameStop and is handy with electronics.

Despite the hardship of his life, Jonathan is a very positive, outgoing person, who makes friends easily. He describes himself as a very patient person and is extraordinarily resilient and upbeat. He is a role model for his younger brother, whom he talks to almost every day. He likes to go to parties, clubs, movies and to hear music and is looking forward to exploring Santa Barbara. His ambition is to go to school to become a music producer or DJ. We are happy to help him fulfill his dreams.

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New Training Brings Even Better Care to Hillside House                   

In November of 2010, we hired Ricardo Martinez to be our new Director of Staff Development and CNA Department Supervisor with the goal of bringing improvements to the training and supervision of our care staff and relieving our Client Services Director Gail Metzger of her overburdened schedule so that she could do more with and for our residents. Ricardo has been fulfilling our goals in many ways, updating our materials and streamlining them for relevance to our population, bringing much-needed, Spanish-language training to some of our staff, and doing more hands-on training and supervision. He has also been busy training our staff in the new record-keeping software and hardware we purchased last year.

But that's not all. This past year Ricardo began to research online training programs to enhance our staff training. Having been exposed to this form of training at the hospital where he also works, Ricardo has seen the benefits. When he attended a conference on staff development last year, he reviewed a number of providers of online training programs and found one that matched our needs well, Silverchair Learning Systems. We applied for a grant from the Santa Barbara foundation to fund one year of online training programs for all of our staff and have just begun to implement these programs. Already we are seeing exciting possibilities.

While online training does not in any way take the place of hands-on learning, the programs allow us to make sure all of our 24-hour staff get the same training in all of the required subjects, are tested on that training, and tracked in their progress. Because we are a 24-hour facility and have only one staff trainer, this allows us to maximize our resources, meet all of the mandatory training requirements, and also stay completely current with changes in regulations, procedures, policies and best practices. We are also able to generate needed reports on staff training with a few simple clicks on the computer. Trainings are available in Spanish and English on a wide range of important subjects, such as medications, assistive devices, and hospice care.

With Silverchair we are able to customize the learning and create our own training programs as well. And, since some of the subjects are required to be taken by all staff annually, Silverchair allows us to provide some variety in the training by offering multiple presentations on those recurrent subjects.

Through the trainings, we are also discovering ways to improve our policies and procedures, making Hillside House a better facility for our residents. Better training means better care for our residents, our highest priority. One of the reasons we chose Silverchair was the emphasis on understanding and empathy with the needs of clients served, creating a culture of cooperation and well-being and fostering higher quality of life.

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Taking Advantage of the IRA Charitable Rollover