Is it FUN around there?

My daughter came home from her summer job the other day with a grin on her face. Actually, saying she “came home” doesn’t really give you the picture. She’s 19, and she’s working full eight-hour days this summer with kids, teaching gymnastics and dance camps. So when she comes home in the evening, it’s more a matter of doors slamming, shoes and bags dropping to the floor right inside the door, and a dramatic, sighing, slinking onto the nearest available horizontal surface where she can crash until starvation overtakes inertia. If you have a working teen this summer, you know the drill.

It’s the grin that really throws me, though. “What’s up with the big smile?” I ask her.

“I love my job,” she said. “This is the first job I’ve ever had that I really love.” This from a kid who probably holds the world record for odd high-school jobs: Subway, Baskin-Robbins, the local pizza place, not to mention babysitting for half the neighborhood.

“So what’s different about this job?” me, her nosy mom, inquires.

“Well, I’m doing something I love – dance.” (She’s been teaching dance all year while at college, though. More prying needed.)

“I LOVE the people I work with,” she replies. “Now that I think about it, I think that’s really why I love this job. The people I work with crack me up – they’re so funny. We have so much fun.”

My first response is a little warm glow. My daughter actually likes work – nice!

My second response was this weird little chill: can my employees say that about MY workplace? Is it a place where people laugh all day and just have fun being there? Do I give them the time, space and permission – tacit or explicit – to “crack each other up?”

As the leader around here, I’m sure that when I’m stressed, in a rush, or feeling pressure to get everything done I don’t set the stage for much “cracking up.” I probably DO set the stage for a lot of focused work and productivity (good), but also a lot of isolation and single-mindedness (not so good).

What I really want to achieve is a workplace where people want to show up; where they want to contribute to the “greater good” of the organization, and where they laugh often, too. I want a place where people LOVE working, because I believe that anything I love doing, I’ll do it well and often (this applies to my staff, too).

Funny hat day? Probably not. Relax just a little more often and share a laugh or two? Definitely on the agenda.

Preparing for Coming Changes: Opportunity or Crisis?

You may be reading everywhere about the aging of today’s baby boomers. I’m one of them, and I can tell you the clock is only moving faster these days. It’s inevitable:  me, and millions of other born during the mid-century baby boom, are quickly becoming seniors. It’s really not us, though, that you need to be gearing up for; it’s our parents. Most of us have aging parents who need care and services, either now or in the readily foreseeable future.

While everyone is focused on this aging boomer market, though, there’s another market that is sneaking its way into that position of opportunity or crisis. It’s the group of individuals with autism, a group who were recently children, and who are now aging out of the public school system, often with no adult-care system in place. You may already be hearing from individuals who need help with care for these special folks, and who are beginning to check out the options, both for home care and for facility-based care.

Comparatively, it seems like a small group. After all, we know of millions of individuals with Alzheimer’s needing care. But many options have been developed for the aged and for those with dementia over the past decade or two; few options exist for individuals with autism.

According to a recent article in the Sunday Parade magazine titled “Who will care for Dana?", as many as 500,000 children with autism are entering adulthood in the near future, many with no community options available. Many families are looking for assisted living type options, with staff especially trained to meet the needs of the client with autism.

Opportunity? If your staff is trained and ready to provide care, you can easily begin to accommodate needs. If you have an underutilized building, this could be a tremendous opportunity for you to meet these special needs. Families of children and adults with autism are some of the most technologically connected folks, giving an ideal platform for information and referrals. Facebook’s Autism Speaks group, for example has nearly 800,000 “likes” – compare that to the group who “like” the Alzheimer’s Association or related organizations, none of which have even 10% of this following.

Crisis? Trying to admit a person with special needs that your staff is not trained to handle is the fast track to crisis. Watching your competition pass you by with specially certified staff is another way to crisis, even if it’s just the pit-of-the-stomach sort of crisis.

Here at aQuire Training, we’ve identified this group of caregivers as a tremendous opportunity. We’ve been listening to them and hearing what they say: their challenges are immense and the resources available to them very limited. We’re planning to develop a series of training courses, both for family caregivers and for the professional caregiving team. Let us know if you’re interested – we’ll put you on a list to get development updates.

And keep your ears to the ground. There are lots more changes coming. It’s up to us to make them opportunities, not challenges!

Save the Day (and the Resident)!

Here’s a tool I found a while back, but just noticed again in a recent article in Provider magazine http://www.ahcancal.org/News/publication/Provider/CoverJan2011.pdf (January, 2011) about avoiding re-hospitalizations in residents. It’s a free resource (awesome!), but I think it could be very, very useful to your caregiving team.

You can find the resources at http://interact2.net.  Interact stands for “Interventions to Reduce Acute Care Transfers.” My favorite tools are the cards for caregivers to carry in their pockets. They’re called “Stop and Watch” cards. A caregiver could identify a change, circle it and turn it in to their supervisor, even if they are uncomfortable with the actual reporting process. You’ll notice that key indicators of change in condition are noted, with instructions for the caregiver.

If you want to prevent costly hospitalizations and head off the risk of losing the resident to higher care (or worse), you may want to print a supply of these for all your caregivers to carry with them – every day!

To check out the rest of the tools available on this great website go to http://interact2.net/tools.html.