Monica Meyer Monica@MonicaMeyerConsultingInc.onmicrosoft.com
Families are the historians of their loved one’s life. They carry decades of knowledge, experiences, and insights that no assessment, report, or service record can fully capture. Like the childhood game of Telephone, important details can become diluted, misunderstood, or lost altogether as information passes through multiple providers, agencies, and life transitions.
Clallam County Health and Human Services – Developmental Disabilities Program is supporting an innovative pilot project designed to improve continuity, dignity, and quality of supports for Youth and Adults with autism, intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), particularly those with high-acuity support needs. Grounded in Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) values, this project addresses one of the most persistent challenge in the service system: the disruption individuals and families experience when staff turnover leads to repeated Discovery processes and assessment duplication.
The purpose of this project is to help families preserve their loved one’s story in a way that traditional assessments and paperwork cannot. By capturing personal history, strengths, preferences, communication styles, learning needs, and effective support strategies, the multimedia profile creates a lasting, living resource that helps others understand the whole person—not just the reports.
Even the strongest assessments are written through the lens of a specific service provider, which means important details may still be missed. This profile helps individuals and families keep critical knowledge current, accessible, and consistent across services, providers, and life transitions—reducing the need to repeatedly retell their loved one’s story.
Led by Monica Meyer Consulting, Inc., this project Bridging Service Gaps in Clallam County: A Pilot for Other Counties will create multimedia portfolios that preserve essential knowledge about each individual so that understanding does not need to begin again every time a provider or staff member changes.
A Multimedia Portfolio that Follows the Person
Each multimedia portfolio is developed through a comprehensive process that captures a meaningful understanding of the individual’s life. The portfolio highlights may include but is not limited to the following files:
- Interests, strengths, and personal motivations
- Communication style, effective communication strategies in action
- Sensory preferences
- Learning style
- Conditions that support success in community or employment environments
- Contributions, gifts, and talents
- Successful support strategies that promote regulation, engagement, and participation
- Preferences related to routines, environments, and relationships
Through interviews, record review, and video vignettes in familiar environments, the project captures the depth and nuance of who the individual is not simply their support needs of deficits.
The result is a 45–75 minute multimedia video portfolio that preserves the individual’s story in a respectful, accessible, and highly usable format that can be shared at the discretion of the individual or their family.
Benefits for Individuals and Families
For many individuals with high-acuity support needs, repeated assessments can feel exhausting and discouraging. Families are often asked to retell deeply personal information multiple times as new staff enter the system. This project reduces that burden by creating a lasting resource that captures the individual’s identity, preferences, and successful supports.
Benefits include:
- Reduces the need to repeatedly retell personal history and support needs
- Preserves critical knowledge about communication, regulation, and engagement strategies
- Promotes dignity by ensuring the person is understood beyond paperwork or assessments through interviews and videos at home and the community
- Supports continuity of services even when staff or agencies change
- Creates a lasting record owned by the individual and family
- Helps others understand what is important to and important for the individual
- Supports more meaningful pathways to employment and community inclusion
- Strengthens advocacy by clearly illustrating strengths, interests, and contributions
- Important stories, references, medical history, trauma, etc.
The multimedia profile becomes a living, online resource that reflects the individual as a whole person, highlighting their strengths, relationships, preferences, and possibilities while preserving meaningful details that can be difficult to maintain across multiple agency and provider records.
Benefits for Provider Agencies and Direct Support Professionals (DSP): It’s More Than a Profile, It’s A Practical Training Tool
The multimedia profile also serves as a powerful onboarding and training resource for employment providers, community inclusion specialists, residential staff, and other support professionals.
Individually, agencies often do an excellent job assessing needs through the lens of their specific service area. However, not every agency is looking for the same information, which can result in individuals with IDD and their families going through multiple assessments, evaluations, and repeated explanations. As Michael Callahan, President Emeritus of MG&A, reminds us:
“There is a presumption that a collection of individuals who know the person all know the same thing.”
and:
“If we do not take the time to document the complexity, the nuance in the lives of people with significant disabilities, our efforts to pursue outcomes such as community employment are vulnerable to that which is overlooked.”
A multimedia profile preserves important details and nuances in one place, reducing the risk that critical information becomes lost, misunderstood, or diluted over time.
While provider agencies bring valuable expertise, individuals with IDD and their families often navigate multiple systems, staff changes, and life transitions. Families are repeatedly asked to retell their loved one’s story, while new staff piece together information from reports, assessments, and conversations.
When key knowledge is incomplete, the impact can be significant: misunderstood communication, overlooked trauma, missed medical concerns, ineffective support strategies, unnecessary crises, and disruptions in quality of life.
A multimedia profile bridges these gaps by preserving the person’s history, communication style, learning preferences, strengths, support strategies, health considerations, and life experiences in one living, family-owned resource. It complements, not replaces provider expertise, helping staff understand the person more quickly, provide consistent support, and promote meaningful employment, relationships, and safe community participation.
What Participation Involves
Participation is completely voluntary and collaborative. Individuals and families will work with Monica Meyer to identify the most important messages, stories, and details they want preserved. This may include interviews with the individual, family members, and trusted supporters; review of documents, assessments, and plans; identification of strengths, interests, and preferred environments; and short video segments in familiar home or community settings. The process may also capture successful communication approaches and support strategies in action. The final multimedia portfolio belongs to the individual and family and may be shared with providers as they choose to support continuity, understanding, and respectful, person-centered services.
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