Basic nutrition skills for mentally disordered adults : inservice training education curriculum guide

Since the early 1970's mental health services have been changing in the State of California. The primary change has been a shift from institutional care to community based residential care for adults with a mental disorder. As a result, there has been an increasing emphasis placed for community based services and facilities to provide education, training and support in the realm of skills for daily living (i.e. budgeting, menu planning, shopping and preparing meals) for the clients they serve. The major purpose of this project was to design a standardized Nutrition Education Curriculum Guide for use in training licensed residential care facilities staff which would prepare them to teach their clients skills related to these basic needs. The need for this curriculum guide was established first as a response to Senate Bill 155 requiring LRCF's to participate in 20 hours of in-service training annually in order to receive reimbursement for services provided to mentally disordered adults. In addition, to establishing training needs, a survey was conducted among LRCF's to identify current training practices and priorities for new program designs. Based on identified needs, and following the guidelines of the recent legislation, SB 155, a nutrition education curriculum was designed. The curriculum consisted of five teaching modules focusing on basic nutrition principles, budgeting, meal planning, purchasing and selecting foods, and the preparation of basic meals. This guide was validated by professionals in the field of nutrition education and suggestions were given for the implementation of this project. The primary concern for the staff would be to be able to tailor the guide to the individual needs of each client in their facility.