Personal Environment Assessment Information
The Personal Environment Assessments (PEA) include the Community Life Skills Scale, The Difficult Life Circumstances Scale and the The Network Survey Scale. These are a practical set of measures for systematically assessing the individual, family and environment in regards to the amount and type of difficult life circumstances, support, and community resources available. Research has shown that the families who have few difficult life circumstances, strong support networks and use community resources have healthier interactions with their children over time. The Personal Environment Assessments (PEA) provide a unique set of "windows" for assessing the family and developing strategies for intervention. These measures have been proven valid and reliable and are excellent as pre and post treatment measures in research and practice.
Using the Personal Environment Assessment Tools:
· Provides a unique set of "windows" for assessing the family and developing strategies for intervention.
· Research has shown that the families who have few difficult life circumstances, strong support networks and use community resources have healthier interactions with their children over time.
· Provide excellent pre and post treatment measures in research and practice.
The CLS is a 33-item yes/no scale that you can use to assess your client's use of community resources and their ability to negotiate for self and family in the community. The 33 items cover six major categories:
· Transportation
· Budgeting
· Support Services
· Support Involvement
· Interests-Hobbies
· Regularity-Organization-Routines
You will find the CLS useful for gathering baseline and outcome data about your clients' use of community resources, identifying strengths and needs, facilitating mutual goal setting, and evaluating change as a result of intervention. This assessment is administered as an interview.
The Network Survey lets you look at the amount and quality of both the personal (family, friends, neighbors, co-workers) and professional (agencies, self-help groups, etc) support available to your client. The Network Survey goes beyond simply gathering information about the type, amount and quality of supportive people in one's network to include degree of helpfulness.
The Difficult Life Circumstances (DLC) is a 28-item yes/no scale that assesses the existence of stressors or chronic problems in families. You can administer it as a self-report instrument or interview. The tool is unique in asking important sensitive questions such as substance abuse and physical abuse of self or a child without placing blame. You will be alerted to issues within the environment by the responses. Responses to the questions are the client's perception of whether or not a problem exists. It can be administered as a self-report instrument or interview.