“I could not have been as good as I was through the trauma I experienced without people like you two Chaplains, and I mean that! All the love and prayers meant the world to me. The company has the best leadership that truly suported me too! Have a blessed day!!! Thank you so much for reaching out!”

– Chaplain at senior living community

The post I Could Not Have Made it Through without You! appeared first on Senior Living Chaplains.

Chaplains help stabilize a struggling workforce

With staggering stats about the mental health of today’s employees, companies are seeking additional, new, and proven services to help stabilize their employee workforce, especially with the onset of more pandemic news and economic uncertainty.

Loneliness and isolation are worsening as crucial workplace belonging and interaction with other team members has been disrupted.

Chaplains also help family members

The problems associated with mental health are not exclusive to working adults. Children are now being affected and are seeking help more than ever. Unfortunately, there are not enough resources or health professionals to meet the growing demand.

“Young people’s mental health deteriorated during the pandemic, when cabin fever exacerbated family conflicts and schools left children isolated from normal activities and peers.” The Washington Post: Children’s Mental Health

“Parents are frantic and desperate,” says Nathalie Thandiwe, a public health expert in Los Angeles.

Chaplains help facilitate further help when needed

This is where chaplains are proving to be a supplemental resource providing an easy touchpoint, a safe place to ask questions and seek help. Chaplains can also facilitate the connection to an EAP or other mental health professional service.

“During my years caring for patients, the most common pathology I saw was not heart disease or diabetes; it was loneliness. At work, loneliness reduces task performance, limits creativity, and impairs…reasoning and decision making.” Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, 19th Surgeon General of the US

Chaplains are a Non-Threatening, Easy Way to Ask for Help

Ask us today how we can help you care for your Team Members.

The post Chaplains Provide Integrated Services for Employee Mental health appeared first on Senior Living Chaplains.

“Immediately upon entering the senior care facility, Team Members began to process with me what the last year of life was like for them. Tears were shed as many considered the weight they have been carrying with no inside family visits, limited outsiders able to come in and help, and isolation protocols in place. They shared how they have not only been the nutritionists, therapists, nurses, CNA’s . . . but also have had to bear the weight of being the Residents’ families, counselors, and pastors. Seeing the chaplain brought the beginning of a release.”

Will you invite Chaplain Care to Help your Team Members unload the weight they have been carrying?

Jarrod Hawthorne earned his Master of Divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is certified as a chaplain by Marketplace Chaplains. Jarrod has served 18 years as Lead Pastor, 6 years as a Hospice Chaplain, and 4 years as a Chaplain with Senior Living Chaplains, a division of Marketplace Chaplains.

The post Team Members Open Up to Chaplain appeared first on Senior Living Chaplains.

Moving to assisted living can feel like moving your life into a totally new world. With this new change comes new routines, new expenses, and of course, new decisions. One of the most pressing decisions that many older adults face as they prepare for this sort of move is how to handle their home. Deciding what to do with your home is a big decision, and it’s certainly not the last one you will make during this big transition. If you want to make figuring out what to do with your current home easier, Senior Living Chaplains recommends these essential steps.

Figure Out Your Assisted Living Plan Before You Make a Decision

If you have recently decided to move into assisted living but haven’t decided which community is right for you, you should take care of this crucial step ASAP. Depending on which community you choose, you may need to make a different decision about selling, renting, or keeping your current home. If you’re wondering where to start when selecting an assisted living community, you can go online to compare features and rates for assisted living communities in your area. You can chat, call, or email with advisors on these sites to narrow down your choices and schedule tours of your top picks. Tours can be useful because you can see for yourself what sort of amenities each community offers, and you can also see that assisted living can provide some serious perks. Many communities offer social activities and maintenance services in addition to providing seniors with safety.

Work With a Local Realtor Before You Decide to Sell Your Current Home

Now that you have your assisted living plan and costs figured out, you can decide whether selling your home makes the most sense. This is the most obvious way to get rid of the expense and upkeep involved with owning a home, but if you need funds for assisted living, you need to make sure your home sale provides profits. Investing in the right upgrades and staging touches can help boost the price point of your home. But honestly, the best way to ensure that selling your home will be profitable is to consult a realtor. An experienced local pro can provide market information for your area and can help you decide whether selling right now will yield profits.

Find a Property Manager Before You Decide to Rent Out Your Current Home

When you’re preparing for a move to assisted living, you already have enough on your plate. So, don’t add more stress by going it alone if you decide to rent out your home. Before you begin leasing your home, think about hiring a property manager to take care of the finer points of marketing, maintaining, and managing a rental property. Otherwise, you could end up searching for reliable tenants and attempting to collect timely rent payments on your own. An experienced property manager can tell you how to make rentals more profitable.

Talk With Your Loved Ones Before You Decide to Gift Your Current Home

A far less common option for seniors who are looking to get rid of their homes before transitioning into assisted living is to give the home to family members. If you are considering this uncommon move for your current home, you should talk with the intended recipients first. Make sure your loved ones want your home and also ensure that your family members understand the financial implications of receiving these property gifts. They may need to pay additional taxes on that property, so you both need to be aware of these legal ramifications.

If you’re still having a hard time deciding how to handle your current home, you may need more time to plan your transition into assisted living. After all, moving out of your home and giving up your current lifestyle are both huge changes, so allow yourself some time to process your emotions and then get back to using the tips above to decide what to do with your home.

Image by rawpixel.com

The post How Seniors Can Stress Less About Assisted Living Transitions appeared first on Senior Living Chaplains.

Watters Garden Center leads the ways to better employee health not just physically but also through men and women that serve as the company Chaplains to employees, their families, and vendors.

Watters Chaplain’s care for our staff, families, and relationships, allowing us to shine with confidence. During normal working hours, weekly visits build a rapport of confidence. When a team member needs help figuring out life challenges, a chaplain helps talk things through.

A specially designated chaplain app, emails, calls, and personal visits allow spiritual, mental, and physical access to staff members when unexpected life happens. Hospitalized spouses, suicidal children, parents in nursing homes, funerals, even weddings are just a few ways Watters Chaplains assist employee’s personal lives.

“This is an innovative way to care for our team between H.R. and health care. We recruit new chaplains through Market Place Chaplains USA,” says Ken Lain, owner. “Because the paperwork and time commitments are so low, it’s a great side job for pastors, active laypeople, clergy, even past military chaplains are making a difference. If you have a heart for people, you should apply.”

https://snip.ly/or2p0g

The post Chaplains Comfort the Team at Watters Garden Center appeared first on Senior Living Chaplains.

Currently, my husband and I live with my mother, supporting her as she encounters the challenges of aging and the reality of her mortality. More is required of me as time progresses and her health declines. Being sensitive to her losses and how she grieves them is a fine art I learn daily. Fortunately, I can apply my understanding of healthy grief, watch for signs of unhealthy grief, and let her know I hear her even when she cannot find the words to articulate the confusion and pain.

As Chaplains for senior living communities, I can imagine your spectrum of support is even wider. Your ministry is to the residents, their families, as well as the staff members. Each group has their own specific needs and ways to process grief.

The elderly may display their grief by shutting down, denying, or showing depression. They are already struggling with diminishing capabilities. By this stage in their life, they have lost so much: friends, a spouse, their career (often their identity), possibly a child, siblings and for sure their parents. For many seniors, health is a major loss. And for others, the loss of mental acuity is painfully difficult for them and their family members.

In addition, seniors are also looking down the barrel of their own mortality. Interacting with them by supportive listening as they grieve their losses is such an important gift to give them. Some seniors are at peace about this. They have a faith that gives them hope for a beautiful future. Supporting their hope brings encouragement to their days and nights.

In our little household, we all managed to get COVID-19. The real possibility of my mother’s death was a part of our experience. While her symptoms were mild, the potential for rapid decline existed. Bedtime seemed to be especially troublesome for her. Her body was so uncomfortable, and her mind was prone to fear. Two simple strategies helped us both. They might be useful for you and the staff who serve their residents.

1. Listening to my mother express her fears and acknowledging the difficulty of feeling those feelings was a way to see her transition from panic to peace. Just knowing that one’s feelings are normal and were heard are two ways to dissipate the stress of loss and grief. My mother and I said important things to each other. You might be the one who hears these important phrases a senior resident would like to say to their family but are not able to do so for a variety of reasons. Responding with, “This is really difficult,” “I know this is hard,” and “Thank you for sharing,” are supportive comments that convey you acknowledge their vulnerability, loss, pain, fear, and grief. Is this not a time to bear another’s burdens?
2. I found that talking about the future of an Earth made new with no physical pain or limitations helped my mom transition her thoughts from fear to peace. It was reassuring to hear her move from pain and fear of not living anymore to anticipating something so much better than she was experiencing. Even if someone is not a person of faith, they can still imagine a world free from pain and suffering. What might they like to do or see or where would they go? How would the world look different to them and who would they want to spend time with? By lifting the thoughts of fearful minds towards what is true, noble, pure, good, lovely, praiseworthy, and excellent, it opens the way for God’s peace to be with them. (Phil. 4:8,9)

As a grief educator and grief coach, I welcome any opportunity to support and educate others about healthy healing grief. Our new resources are Scripture based, clinically proven, accessed by many, and well received by nearly all who have had the opportunity to be trained in grief support skills or coached through their own loss. You are welcome to visit www.comfortfortheday.com to discover our online courses, cards, book, blogs, or potential training opportunities. We look forward to supporting you as you minister to residents, families, staff, and administration through these exceptionally difficult times.

© Karen Nicola 2021

The post Two Simple Strategies to Help Elders Deal with Fear appeared first on Senior Living Chaplains.

I’ve been a professional chaplain, a bereavement coordinator, and a counselor for healthcare professionals for over 35 years. Through focused education and experience, I have had the opportunity to help many clients, families, and colleagues navigate through the dying, death, & bereavement processes. However, I have found that no matter how knowledgeable, understanding, and supportive I may be when helping others, it is dramatically different when grief invades my own world.

This became abundantly clear when my mother died after a short illness. After she drew her last breath and I was driving home from the hospital, I had to pull over to the side of the road and allow the emotions to flow. I hadn’t experienced the deep pain and anguish of grief in this way for quite some time. I felt lost, unprepared, and unwilling to begin that journey. Though I had focused my professional life on providing support for others in their grief, I felt helpless–totally unarmed to help myself.

At that moment I decided to take my own advice. I took out my phone and called a friend, a bereavement colleague, from right there in my car. It was extremely helpful to open up and share my pain with a trusted colleague who was able to empathetically listen, understand, and provide support.

Don’t try to “go it alone.” Take the red “S” off your chest. Whether you call a colleague, EAP, or confide with your chaplain, take your own advice and talk with someone about the significance of your loss and the pain you are experiencing. You’ll be glad you did.

You can also talk with God. He knows grief and heartache, firsthand. He loves you and wants to wrap His arms around you and whisper in your ear, “I’ve got you. It’s going to be okay.” He says to each of us, “Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not anxiously look around you, for I AM your God. I will strengthen you; surely, I will help you; surely, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10)

Ralph Plumley is an Executive Director of Operations for Marketplace Chaplains where he serves as a mentor to chaplains and oversees the staff-care benefit they provide to companies and organizations in the greater Philadelphia area. With a background in hospital chaplaincy, funeral home bereavement services, and hospice care, Ralph has over 35 years’ experience assisting families and professionals when a death occurs. He is a graduate of Philadelphia Biblical University (now Carin University) and Dallas Theological Seminary with a Master of Theology Degree. He is Ordained by the Baptist General Conference, Certified in Thanatology: Dying, Death, and Bereavement by the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC), and a Certified Funeral Celebrant. He has received & provided extensive training in Critical Incident Stress Management, and suicide intervention. He has served as President of the Delaware End-of-Life Coalition, on the Board of Directors of Supporting Kidds: The Center for Grieving Children & Their Families, and committee chair for ADEC. Ralph has authored several CareNotes published by Abbey Press for teens, adults, and professional care givers.  He has been asked to speak locally and nationally on various topics related to dying, death, Critical Incident Stress Management, loss, & grief. Ralph and his wife have been married for 39 years. They have four children and four grandchildren, so far.

The post Managing My Loss and Grief While Caring for Others appeared first on Senior Living Chaplains.

To learn more about Trinity being called a Great Place to Work and what they see as opportunities in the future for better service for the elder care industry, read the entire Fortune article here:

https://snip.ly/sxbn9z

How one of the best elder care companies has found opportunity in the COVID crisis
Leaders of Trilogy Health Services see the COVID crisis as an opportunity to aid the elder care industry as a whole.
BY JACQUELYN KUNG , ED FRAUENHEIM  AND  GREAT PLACE TO WORK
December 10, 2020 7:00 AM EST

The post Leaders of Trilogy Health Services see the COVID crisis as an opportunity to aid the elder care industry as a whole appeared first on Senior Living Chaplains.

The Covid-19 pandemic has injected new stress and fear into senior living workers’ lives, and this has prompted some providers to implement new strategies in order to retain them.

by Tim Regan, October 5, 2020

Flexible scheduling, higher pay, free meals and other services were not standard fare in the senior living industry before the pandemic, but providers now wield these tools with greater frequency as they seek to stay ahead of staffing shortages. Much of that has to do with the fact that senior living employees are experiencing far more mental stress than they were just seven months ago, according to Lisa Fordyce, an executive vice president at OnShift…

…While burnout was a real risk before the novel coronavirus, it is now an even greater one. OnShift has tracked a 50% increase in call-offs and a 12% increase in overtime hours for employees, according to data collected from its employee scheduling software.

“There’s some mental wear and tear that goes along with this,” Fordyce said. “As caregivers, we’re compassionate, we care and we show up even when we’re exhausted and tired.”

To get ahead of those pressures, OnShift has noted a variety of strategies providers can utilize. They range from free childcare, flexible spending and free meals to an increase in base pay, extra uniforms, transportation services and mental health benefits. Fordyce also noted a senior living operator that started employing chaplains in order to keep employees engaged spiritually.

Read full article here

The post Senior Living Providers Get Creative to Improve Workforce Retention Amid Pandemic appeared first on Senior Living Chaplains.

Trilogy Health Services, a senior living company focused on the well-being of their 12,000 employees, partners with Senior Living Chaplains to provide Chaplain Team care to their employees and family members.

By Tim Regan | October 11, 2020

Communicating with residents and associates was already a challenge for the senior living industry. But Covid-19 made communication an even bigger challenge — and, an even more important practice — than before the pandemic began.

Providers such as Baltimore-based Brightview Senior Living and Louisville, Kentucky-based Trilogy Health Services have had to think creatively about ways to relay messages to residents, their loved ones and associates.

“We realized quickly that many of the ways we had communicated in the past, and the frequency of that communication with our various constituencies — particularly our associates, residents and families — was going to have to change dramatically,” said Brightview Senior Living CEO Marilynn Duker during a panel discussion at the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC) Fall Conference, which is being held virtually this week.

But both companies were able to overcome these new challenges by employing unique strategies, such as working with “marketplace chaplains” who hold virtual religious services and counseling sessions, or by using in-house apps and software to help keep track of data and virtually meet.

“Transparency certainly is important any time, but definitely during these times of crisis,” said Leigh Ann Barney, president and CEO of Trilogy Health Services.

Click here for article

The post How Brightview and Trilogy Harnessed Tech for Covid-19 Communication, Transparency appeared first on Senior Living Chaplains.