Granite Bay Care, Inc., (GBC) employs an innovative model to deliver Home & Community Based Services Waiver services in one or two person community residences. Beginning with a professional roommate, supports can be gradually faded as individuals demonstrate increased self-management skills and reduced risk to themselves and the community.

The professional roommate, a trained "Adult-Foster Care Provider" serves as the core of this model providing the necessary day-to-day mentoring and supervision critical to "active treatment" without the stigma normally associated with "staffed models". We encourage the "individual" to identify this "provider" as their "roommate", creating a normalizing context for their relationship.

To ensure that this "roommate" stays refreshed, the Agency pairs them with a "Respite" worker who serves as their weekend counterpart. By extension, they continue the roommate role, ensuring continuity of "active treatment" and consistency of quality. The presence of "one voice" can minimize confusion, treatment inconsistency, and triangulation while improving personal ownership and trust.

For individuals requiring more intense supports, the Agency can bolster this core with another layer of staffing. Utilizing "Direct Support Professionals", this second tier of supports can assist the professional roommate in rendering services, providing crisis stabilization without diluting the "one voice".   Eventually, when the crisis passes, this additional layer of services can be pealed back, leaving the "roommate" core.  

The professional roommate and their support team are supervised by an assigned Program Manager who oversees the clinical and business functions of the home. The Program Manager is available for immediate consultation, providing a twenty-four hour a day, seven day a week resource to the individual and their support team.

Members of the GBC Service Team are trained to meet standards established within the Direct Service Professional curriculum. All staff persons receive specific training as Maine Certified Residential Medication Aides (CRMA) and intensive training in Behavioral Analysis and Forensics. Prior to working in a one-to-one capacity each staff person must demonstrate proficiency in Non-Violent Crisis Intervention (CPI) and are closely monitored to ensure that they maintain strict performance guideline. Proactively, the Agency offers training and support to local law enforcement to foster a planned response to unplanned crisis.

The agency uses "best practice" to define delivery of services. However, when applied to special, challenging populations, "best practice" must of necessity be progressive or cutting edge. To effectively reach out to individuals and their collateral supports outside the Agency, GBC encourages active communication at all levels in the organization. Active communication ensures that "best practice" remains more than just an ideal; but rather that it becomes the application of continuous quality improvement.