Medication Management in Developmental Disability Care

As a frontline worker caring for people with developmental disabilities, I have noticed that great care is taken with the administration of clients’ medication in all of the agencies I have worked. These agencies strive to ensure that clients receive the proper medication and dosages on the right schedules, as failure of either of these can lead to death or some other negative health outcome for the client. There are harsh consequences for the staff responsible for such error, and, if such errors are rampant, it can lead to revocation of the agency’s license. Aside from negative consequences, it is also generally contrary to the agencies’ operational visions and values not to uphold their avowed duty and standard of care for their clients,

However, given the complex nature of this issue, there is room for improvement. To illustrate this for the purposes of this essay, I will use an example of a section of a former employer’s medication administration policy, which prohibits frontline staff from buying medication for clients even when clients’ lives are threatened. Across all agencies that cater to people with developmental disabilities, policy and procedure manuals are treated as almost sacrosanct by management and, by extension, the frontline

We have seen how this can lead to the deterioration of clients’ health or even potentially lead to their death. Going forward, I will also have to “identify individuals or groups who may be sympathetic to my issue and may be my potential supporters” Dukeshire & Thurlow ( 2002). To this end, I will talk to some of my colleagues in an attempt to bring them together on this issue. Clients will also be involved in the group, as will parents and guardians, but the latter two only with the approval of management, as frontline staff working with people with developmental disabilities are not at liberty to discuss such sensitive issues with parents or guardians without management’s consent. Management or supervisors may accuse frontline workers as speaking poorly of the system that employs them to a customer, who may as a result switch to another