dysfunctional aging family Archives ⋆ Cathy Cress

Thanksgiving Going HayWire? Call a Care Manager

October 19, 2018

The holiday season in the aging dysfunctional family triggers amped up turmoil. Mom can’t cook the turkey, she forgets to wrap presents, Dad’s not just drunk but he’s wandering. Prepare to handle these fractured families when the adult children call a care manager for help. Revisit the Thanksgivings many of these now baby boomers lived in the 1970’s
Kids who grew up in the 70’s will soon have Thanksgiving with their 70 or 80-year-old aging parents.Will they recall the ” Ice Storm”?
In the film, it is Thanksgiving weekend in the early 70″s and a boyish Tobey Mc Guire returns home from prep school to a Thanksgiving feast that his sister starts with this prayer.
” Dear Lord, thank you for this Thanksgiving holiday. And for all the material possessions we have and enjoy. And for letting us white people kill all the Indians and steal their tribal lands. And stuff us like pigs, even though children in Asia are being napalmed.”
So we begin the descent down the cusp of the 1970’s as the nearly normal family shapeshifts into dysfunctional in Ang Lee’s brilliant film The Ice Storm.
Lee’s Thanksgiving classic is the perfect reflection of some family’s plunge into the early 70’s season of hell.
If you’re in your 40’s and grew up with parents have gone haywire through 70’s social change, you will remember the ice storm.
Divorce imploded the family, as we knew it. If you were a parent then you may recall, Nixon resigning, key parties, (swinging couples affairs), Watergate, Deep Throat and self-help books or hear David Bowie who did the soundtrack to the film.

With Lou Reed you can loop back to his fabulous song of that spins the period Walk on the Wild Side and maybe recall the template for it the entire era the -book, Open Marriage.

Children of this social tumult may now share another Thanksgiving with the aging parents who put them through hell. What will they do when they find they have to care for those same parents who did not care for them? When they return to Thanksgiving they may call an aging life or geriatric care manager. Are you ready?
Learn more about what you can do for dysfunctional families and give them hope when they call desperately call this holiday.

Join me in my new Webinar November 14 2PM PST

10 Steps Tame the Turbulence of Holiday Meltdown in Aging Families

During the busiest season for care management referrals-

You Will Learn:

How to give hope to frantic children who call, after seeing their aging parent struggling with the rituals
How to sell services to desperate adult child callers
How to use GCM tools to contain Holiday chaos
How to use financial forecasting to prepare for growth during the holidays
How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holidays
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Watch my YouTube Channel Geriatric Care 1 and learn how to work with the dysfunctional family who will desperately call around the holidays

10 Steps to Market to & Serve Wealthy, Demanding Long Term Aging Clients Like Donald Trump

September 6, 2018

How Do You Deliver Your Value Proposition of serving long-term clients from the top 10% financially- who can offer sustainable financial growth to your Aging Life or GCM company?

You offer superior professional Concierge Service to Client and Family- Care they demand when you need it

You offer preventative care to avoids Crisis -Helps Keep Clients Out of E room and nursing homes and Keep them at home where they wish to be

You write or rewrite your business plan that has a value proposition that includes your marketing plan to reach your target markets o concierge clients in the upper 10% and the third parties who in many cases serve them as well, like elderlaw attorneys and upscale assisted living.

You Use the value proposition from your business plan – leading to one-time/long term client engagements – How

Deliver concierge service
Offer confidential services that clients and families can trust
Adjust your plan of care as professionally needed for family & client
Serve whole aging family
Provide a GPS through health care needs so that best care is delivered seamlessly
Have a full GCM toolbox and know all community resources –to change tools as client change and age safely in place
Refer or provide skilled background checked home care aides who meet the need of entitled clients
Be willing and skilled enough to accept difficult entitled clients who are narcissistic, demanding and unreasonable like Donald Trump , Sumner Redstone, Huguette Clark
Have someone on your staff who has a clinical background in dysfunctional aging families, and psychodynamic diagnosis
Have upscale resources in your resource database like private drivers, private chefs, car services, upscale golf clubs that cater to older clients, and upscale assisted living

Find out more about a value proposition and subscribe to my Youtube channel Geriatric Care 1 to find out more about marketing Aging Life or Geriatric Care Management.

10 Steps to Take to Serve Wealthy, Demanding Long Term Aging Clients Like Donald Trump

August 11, 2017

How Do You Deliver Your Value Proposition of serving long term clients from the top 10% financially- who can offer sustainable financial growth to your Aging Life or GCM company?

You offer superior professional Concierge Service to Client and Family- Care they demand when you need it

You offer preventative care to avoids Crisis -Helps Keep Clients Out of E room and nursing homes and Keep them at home where they wish to be

You Use the value proposition – leading to one-time/long term client engagements – How

Deliver concierge service
Offer confidential services that clients and families can trust
Adjust your plan of care as professionally needed for family & client
Serve whole aging family
Provide a GPS through health care needs so that best care is delivered seamlessly
Have a full GCM toolbox and know all community resources –to change tools as client change and age safely in place
Refer or provide skilled background checked home care aides who meet the need of entitled clients
Be willing and skilled enough to accept difficult entitled clients who are narcissistic, demanding and unreasonable like Donald Trump , Sumner Redstone, Huguette Clark
Have someone on your staff who has a clinical background in dysfunctional aging families, and psychodynamic diagnosis
Have upscale resources in your resource data base like private drivers, private chefs, car services, upscale golf clubs that cater to older clients, or upscale assisted living

Sign up for my latest free webinar

Cathy Cress MSW, Author of Handbook of Geriatric Care Management- 4th edition. Webinar Series
Upcoming Webinar
Learn The 5 Steps to Reach the Concierge Client
August 23, 2017 11:00 -12:00 PST
Discover how to transform your GCM entrepreneurial dream into a profitable reality with 5 key marketing steps learn more and get the details
Overcome the double bind of your caring model and learn how to care and make money
Create a marketing strategy and messages that attract concierge clients
Reach this target audience
Design products that exactly meet Concierge Clients needs
Obtain adult children’s buy-in
Use words that will make them choose you
Get care staff they will like and not fire
Get the contract signed with ease

Sign -up for my free webinar

Do You Know The Core Skills You Need to Work With the Whole Aging Family?

May 31, 2017

Geriatric care management tools or an aging professional’s tools fill up an entire toolbox. They are like tools in a carpenter’s toolbox- a hammer, drill, saw and architectural plans. One of those tools, a very potent one that will make your care plan hold up, is the ” Core Skills”.

Care managers and geriatric social workers partner with seniors and their family caregivers to implement the recommendations and provide on-going monitoring of the plan. They bring to the relationship a unique set of CORE skills that help family caregiver achieve greater success in their roles.

C containment

O objectivity

R sources

E expertise

Family caregivers often describe feeling “stuck” which adds a new sense of stress to an already overbooked mind. Care managers often serve as a “container” in which the family caregiver can deposit some of these uncomfortable feelings. For family caregivers, knowing that there is a care manager accessible, with whom they can talk and who will respond with empathy, can help relieve some of the burden and stress.

In order to contain the anxiety for their clients, active listening techniques help care managers stay focused. This technique involves listening with a purpose. It is used most effectively to gain information, understand others, solve problems, see how another person feels, or to show support. Using specific phrases to clarify, encourage, restate reflect, summarize, validate, and empower help the GCM to stay engaged in a meaningful way.

Bunni Dybnis MA, LMFT, CMC Director of Professional Services LivHome, LA
and Steve Barlam Chief Professional Officer, Co-Founder LivHome
MSW, LCSW, CMC, both highly expert care managers, created a seminal chapter on the Tools that a care manager or geriatric social worker need to work with aging families in my book Care Manager’s Working With the Aging Family. they cover these CORE skills in that chapter.

This is the only textbook out that focuses on care management tools needed to work with the aging family. The text addresses the unmet needs of care managers working with aging clients as well as the client’s entire family. With its in-depth focus on the “ aging family system,” this book fills a gap for medical case managers and geriatric care managers, giving them tools to better meet the treatment goals of aging clients and their families, as the older clients move through the continuum of care in institutional based settings or community-based settings.It is now available for a reduced price through Jones and Publisher

How To Work With A Mediator With A Dysfunctional Family-Can’t Make Up Reality- An Elder Kidnapping

December 22, 2016

Mediation is the only choice for many dysfunctional aging families. Here is an example of an elderly father, Steve who has been moved back and forth by his warring adult children First he was in the son Sam’s home and suspecting poor care daughter Suzi moved him to her home. Then she felt she could not cope she placed her Dad in a nursing home. Here is what happened next.

Sam became increasingly worried about Steve’s health and happiness, as well as Suzi’s possible exploitation, if not financial abuse. On impulse, toward the end of Steve’s first week in the convalescent home, Sam drove to Utah and, without going through the facility’s discharge procedures, packed his father up and transported him home to San Francisco. In the rush to leave, Sam forgot Steve’s medications. When the staff discovered Steve was missing, they called Suzi and reported the potential elder abuse incident to Adult Protective Services (APS). Once APS came on the scene, what once appeared to be a straightforward, practical question of where Steve should live have expanded into the following series of legal and medical issues:

Did Suzi kidnap Steve?
Did Sam kidnap Steve?
Did Sam neglect Steve, and was he guilty of elder abuse?
Was Suzi guilty of financial elder abuse?
Did Steve lack the mental capacity to make decisions about his care?
Did he lack the mental capacity to make decisions about his finances and property?
What do you think watch the you tube below?

Find out more from Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition chapter Mediation and Geriatric Care Management Dana Curtis Esq. Elder Mediator

How To Work With A Mediator With A Dysfunctional Family-Can’t Make Up Reality- An Elder Kidnapping

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