Can Wonder Woman Stop a Care Plan From Being Destroyed By the Forces of Evil ?

When you create a care plan for an aging family think ahead to how it may be blown apart

Aging professionals and care manager must be Wonder Woman and outsmart the forces of destruction, which often are the family themselves.

Wonder Woman has spent years learning a whole family approach and can see both the older person’s and the caregiver’s needs, stated or not stated. What is confronted so often is the family caregiver, usually a dutiful daughter and the aging parent cannot agree on interventions a care manager or aging professionals comes up with

Here is an example of a care plan about to be blown to smithereens

• Sterling’s solution was easy, “My daughter who lives nearby can stop by and provide the minimal assistance that I need. I DON’T WANT A STRANGER IN MY HOUSE, and I DEFINITELY DON’T WANT TO MOVE TO A FACILITY!”
• Jane’s solution too was easy but not the one that her mother would easily accept: “I know that my mother would not do well moving and that she truly needs more care than what she is currently willing to accept. While I know that she would prefer for me to provide the care, I just do not have the time to commit, nor do I want to have to be there every evening.  Having a paid caregiver come daily sounds like the best option.”

“Parents may resist paid caregivers for a variety of reasons.  They may cherish their independence and privacy, be unaware of how dependent they are, may fear being robbed or exploited, have racial attitudes, or worry that they will lose contact with their children.”  ⁽¹⁶⁾

• The Wonder Woman aging professional who has a “Whole Family Approach”, understands the underlying outcome that was never voiced by the client. If she had not and Jane did not assure her she would always be there, the whole care plan would fall apart. Jane had to work at her job as a busy attorney and take care of her family and 2 teenage daughters, as Mrs. Sterling did not want to spend money on care and mostly wanted to see her daughter every day. How to you arrange needed care and give the daughter and mother both what they want?

• How do you understand these unstated needs of clients that will literally turn over your apple cart?
• Watch this video to see how you the care manager or aging professional will do your care plan to meet the mother and daughter’s unstated needs.
• Bunni Dybnis MA, LMFT, CMC Director of Professional Services LivHome, LA
  andSteve 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   They cover these CORE skills in that chapter, including how to see a care plan may be blocked.