Hi Rachael, tell us more about your background and path that lead you to work in the senior industry.
Earned my BA in Art History/English literature from Portland State University and took a job in senior living by chance and found I love working in this industry.
I have now been working in senior living for over 5 years. I work with assisted living and memory care needs seniors at Courtyard at Mt. Tabor The Park as Vibrant Life Director.
What is your vision/goal working with older adults?
When I meet seniors and families for the first time it’s because they are facing an obstacle in their lives. As a consequence, they require extra help and support.
What challenges have you faced, which practical steps did you take to implement your vision and how using Sagely has helped?
Every day is a new challenge. My biggest challenge is resident engagement. Independent residents can follow their calendars and highlight events they want on a monthly basis, but with memory Care and assisted living it is a day to day endeavor.
Sagely creates these daily sheets that are easy to read and highlight what our daily programming is. I keep them posted daily by elevators and our residents pick them up in the morning from the desk. Like this, they know what they need to do today.
I also love when I’m with a resident and I hear them get a call from a family member asking if they are at exercise or did they remember to go on the outing? Sagely is so inviting for family members to be involved in their parents active life and also lets them know what they are engaged in each week.
What helpful tips would you share to enhance resident engagement and wellbeing and why it’s important?
A variety of activities is great for enhancing resident engagement. I try and make sure that I don’t only do games, fitness, trivia, crafts on one day. Making sure that there is a little bit of everything for each day helps provide an engaging day for all different personalities.
How do you see technology as an opportunity to support wellbeing in the future?
Technology connects us all, whether we like it or not. Therefore, I love that I have computer data to back up my activities. I can go through each quarter and see which activities are getting results and which are not. I can see if someone is starting to isolate (they used to go to 50 activities a month are now go to 10). This is all hard data I can show families, seniors and myself to build a better and more engaging program.
Sagely creates these daily sheets that are easy to read and highlight what our daily programming is. I keep them posted daily by elevators and our residents pick them up in the morning from the desk. Like this, they know what they need to do today.