Section 6350.23. Homemaker services

(a) The primary functions of homemaker services are to provide adult care and supervision for mentally retarded persons and other members of the family within the home when the adults regularly responsible are unable to provide them, and to provide training in proper home management. The homemaker not only provides personal care but also insures that regular daily homemaking and housekeeping tasks are performed. These services are also available to mentally retarded adults who are living independently in the community.

(b) The homemaker’s responsibilities may include, but are not limited to, any combination of the following:

(1) Household chores, such as cleaning, cooking, meal planning, laundry, ironing, and marketing.

(2) Personal care of dependent children—not limited to the retarded family member.

(3) Budgeting or money management, or both.

(4) Instructing the family members or the mentally retarded individual, or both, in how to perform homemaking duties more effectively and efficiently.

(c) The homemaker will be given, in writing, a list of specific responsibilities before an assignment.

(d) The homemaker may assume live-in responsibilities if there is no other responsible adult who is able to care for the dependent children during the evening and night. This is allowable only if the homemaker is providing daytime duties within the same household. An example of this type of service would be a single parent who has no close relative and the parent is hospitalized, one parent is hospitalized and the other parent is out-of-town, or the parents are unable to care for the needs of their dependent children. The homemaker would then provide direct service, day and night, as well as instruction.

(e) The homemaker must be assigned for a specific period of time for specific duties and responsibilities:

(1) The initial time period may not be for more than 1 month. A mandatory 2-week interval must be observed for evaluation purposes prior to any extension of this service.

(2) All requests for extension must be evaluated by the Base Service Unit and approved in writing by the County Mental Health/Mental Retardation (MH/MR) Administrator with a copy to the regional mental retardation commissioner.

(3) For an extension after 6 weeks from the beginning of the service, the County MH/MR Office must document the lack of feasibility of other alternatives. Specific goals must be determined, and reasonable time limits necessary to meet them must be established.

(f) A homemaker is not to be used for babysitting purposes only. This precludes the assignment of a homemaker, on an ongoing basis, to care for a retarded person while the adult family members work. A family aide may be assigned intermittently to a family for that purpose. Neither service should take the place of a ‘‘day program’’ for the retarded person.