Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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GCM Agency Lifespan Wins Top Awards

April 11, 2021

Geriatric Care Management Home Care Agency Wins National Award

Lifespan a 35-year-old geriatric care agency in Santa Cruz, California won prestigious awards from both national and local groups this month. Home Care Pulse awarded the care management home care agency ” Provider of Choice Award” for being best in class for rendering quality care to their clients, being trustworthy, and providing outstanding home care services the award was based on customer and staff surveys. Locally they also won the Santa Cruz Good Times Award for “Best of Homecare “award while competing with all home care agencies in their county.

Lifespan helped build trust during the “annus horibillus ” year of COVID  through their own website.Clients could see their extreme COVID safety precautions prominently provided on the navigation bar of their website. 

Outstanding Home Care in the year of COVID

The award recognized their outstanding home care services providing quality care through impeccably trained COVID safety-equipped and monitored home care staffing during the pandemic, building community trust. Clients in Santa Cruz, California needing care management services during COVID and ongoing were provided geriatric care management services developed over the agencies 35-year history and fine-tuned for clients’ needs during the epidemic

Quality of Life as Well as Quality of Care

The agency continued to offer Well Being – a service for lonely and isolated seniors who dramatically suffered during the pandemic from sheltering in place. Lifespan not only served the quality of care needs of clients but also the Quality of Life Needs  answering isolation and loneliness in a pandemic

Videos Showing Home Care Safety Build Trust

Finally, they showed the community their excellence and safety through videos in their email newsletters for 6 months, done with a phone by a talented staff member. The agency provides Quality of Life activities and adds videos about  Lifespan‘s Well Being Program. They upload them to their YouTube channel another great way they build trust with their agency. Market safety from Covid-19.

During the continuing but diminishing pandemic, as clients begin to use services like care managers and home care again, it is critical that you build that trust by showing customers you are safe. In Lifespan’s case, you can also win awards for this.

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Blog, Covid Safety Video, COVID-19 Safety, Families, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, home care, Home Care Award, Home Care Covid Safety, Home Care Pulse, Home Care Trust, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, PPE, PPE Nursing Homes, Private Duty Home Care, Provider of Choice Award, Quality of Life, Videos Tagged With: aging family, aging life and geraitric care manager, aging life care management, aging life care manager, aging parent care, care manager, case manager, Community Award, COVID Safety Precautionss, geriatric care manager, geriatric care manager private duty home care, Home Care Pulse, Home Care Pulse Awards, Home Care Trust, Lifespan, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Outstanding Home Care, private duty home care

Start-Up Geriatric Care Management Marketing and PR Checklist

April 7, 2021

 

To grow an ALCA or Geriatric Care management business, you must use-  marketing and public relations (PR). ( usually social workers and nurses have never done )Here is a helpful start –

 

 Start-Up Geriatric Care Management PR/ Marketing Checklist

1. Brand Identity- including logo design and collateral material design

Services needed to complete

Research competition, develop key differentiating features, develop a brand positioning statement, and develop business names, graphic design for the logo.

, colors for business communication. Consider consulting a branding firm.

2. Business Identity            –

Get coordinated business card envelopes, note cards, and folders                                  

Services needed to complete

Graphic design, printing, and delivery

3. Products sheets or Sell sheets, Brochures

Services needed to complete- Copywriting, graphic design, printing, and delivery

4. Identified and 3rd party targets – including a prospect profile

Services needed to complete-

Identify targets ( elder law attorneys, assisted living, concierge physicians, trust/wealth management departments) in your services area.  Research develops prospect profiles, mailing lists, key factors in specific communication messages per target audience. Add to marketing excel sheets.

Want to know more?

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: 3rd party targets, Aging, Aging Family, aging family crisis, aging life business, Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, ALCA Disaster Plan, brand, branding, branding ALCA business, Branding GCM Business, care management start-up, care manager, complementary consultatiom, coronavirus marketing, e-newsletter, GCM emergency procedures, GCM Sales, GCM Speaker's Bureau, GCM Start -Up, GCM Webinar, Geriatric Care Management Business, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, Logo, marketing, Marketing aging life care, marketing ALCA /GCM, marketing care management, Marketing copy, marketing geriatric care management, Marketing plan, Marketing Sell sheets, Marketing Strategy, Marketing to top 10%, Marketing Tools 2021, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Public Relations, social media marketing, START UP, Start-up Marketing, Third Party Tagets Tagged With: aging family, aging life care manager, Benefits vs Features, Brand identiy, care manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric care manager private duty home care, home care care manager, Home care marketing, marekting, marketing geriatric care management, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, PR for geriatric care management

What are Three Key Ways to Market Your ALCA or GCM Business in 2021

April 4, 2021

How should you market your ALCA or care management business in 2021?

As we are still in the throes of COVID, slowly pulling out, three marketing methods will increase your business this year. The first is email marketing, the second videos and the third is marketing your safety as an agency. Since we still cannot see third parties like elder law attorneys,  trust officers or concierge physicians in person, an email newsletter is a ticket to reach contacts who can make referrals. During the pandemic, most business people work from home and are glued to their computers.   Snail Mail only shows a 29% return on your marketing dollar while digital (email specifically) explodes with a whopping 124% return on your money.

Success Tip 4 email Marketing

Choose from email marketing bases likes Constant Contact   Survey Monkey  Other choices. Provide content worth reading. Grab the reader with a powerful headline/subject. Questions work best. Write for your audience. Do emails for your different care management services and match with your third-party audience. Keep it short and simple- more space – fewer words-no paragraphs. Use great photos, from good photo sites   Use photos to punctuate what you are saying. Keep sending on a regular basis once

a month every two weeks.

 Videos are the new  powerful  Marketing Tool

Use videos in your e-newsletters. The importance of video marketing shows in its growth to a $135 billion industry. Brands everywhere are realizing the value of video and creating them. According to ALCA’s marketing guru Courtney Pulitzer,75 million people watch videos every day and stunning viewers retain 95% of the message while watching compared to only 10 % of reading text.

 

Videos are not hard to make

You just need a smartphone tripod and a person to do the videoing. I have a YouTube Channel on Geriatric Care Management for years. Tips to make one a video are, keep it short, script it out, practice, include a “call to action”, and have good lighting. If you want a professional the Aging Life Care Association’s “Coffee Talk has an entire list of sites that will do the videos for you.

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Lifespan, a geriatric care management agency, in Santa Cruz California, has been adding videos to their email newsletters for 6 months. It is all done with a phone by a talented staff member. The agency provides Quality of Life activities and adds videos about  Lifespan‘s Well Bring Program. They upload them to their YouTube channel  another great way to market

 

Build trust with your company

Market safety from Covid-19. During the pandemic, as clients begin to use services like care managers and home care again, it is critical that you build that trust by showing customers you are safe. Market trust through your website and email newsletters. On the front page of your website, the main marketing tool, list why your agency is safe to work with during COVID-19. What % of you of office staff, caregivers, have been vaccinated against COVID-19; a partnership with your County Health Department; your staff is wearing PPE & type that is safest: staff and caregiver screening for COVID- temp checks, etc. Lifespan’s website has an excellent first page on its company safety from COVID

 

Use these marketing tools in 2021 to help your agency thrive.

Reach Cathy in Social Media

Social media links

YouTube channel:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaoHdozwS0RvKD

Social media links

YouTube channel:  Website: https://cathycress.com/

 

Blog: https://www.cathycress.com/blog/

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Gerontologist/Cathy-Cress-MSW-633836950007072/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cathyjocress

Email: cressgcm@got.net

 

 

Filed Under: Aging Life Care, aging life care manager, Blog, COVID-19 Safety, Families, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric social worker, Marketing aging life care, marketing ALCA /GCM, marketing care management, Marketing COVID Safety, marketing geriatric care management, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Tools 2021, nurse advocate, nurse care manager

How Can Someone with Dementia Have a Better Quality of Life on a Holiday ?

April 2, 2021

 

Reminiscence and Story Telling

 

This Easter holiday is the perfect occasion to engage elders with dementia. The role of storytelling and reminiscence is very important for elders, as they look back on their life and holidays bring strong long-term memories. It gives them a chance to socialize as they tell their story. It also means someone usually listens or documents. That magically gives the elder social interaction and connectedness. So many Easter rituals can prompt stories for elders with some level of dementia. The ritual of dying easter eggs, finding easter baskets on Easter morning, dressing up for the local Easter Parade, eating ritual foods at Easter dinner or at Easter Brunch. Whether the older person is actually participating or watching, these rituals can prompt stories from their long-term memory.

 

Elders sharing stories means passing on history.

This gives the older person a chance to give the larger picture of their life and family history to children and grandchildren or extended family, who may have not heard all the details of their grandparents or parents’ life before- what they cooked, what they did on holidays like Easter. So the quality of the older person of both the older person and the aging family is increased through oral history and reminiscence

The aging professional can suggest family or friends just sitting down and prompting a story or oral history using  technology like your phone

Even elders with Alzheimer’s can find new joy with Reminiscence

When an elderly person develops Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia, the short-term memory is frequently affected but long-term memories can remain as intact and vivid as they have always been during the course of the patient’s life. As a result, a family can use a practice called reminiscence therapy to help combat the frustration, confusion, and depression that can often accompany dementia and even bring joy to the older person

What is reminiscence therapy?

 Reminiscence therapy is like a therapy session where the elderly person will spend time recalling memories of his or her life, perhaps telling stories about things that happened and events the person can recall.

Sometimes senior experts or family members can use photos, familiar objects, or other such things to help jog the memory of the patient. Some therapists and family members can a scrapbook of a person’s life, including photos, letters, and other such personal memorabilia. This becomes a visual biography of the patient’s life and helps the older person remember who he or she is.

How does this quality of life therapy help? Almost all elderly men and women can start feeling discouraged and frustrated with their memory issues. Reminiscence can give peace and acceptance of the current situation by helping the person remember that he or she has had a good and full life. It also prompts communication skills of elderly people who otherwise may not feel very compelled to open up and share anything with anyone else.

Dementia and Reminiscence of Easter

So this Easter holiday try reminiscence. People with dementia can receive a richer quality of life when people actually listen to them. They feel as their thoughts and feelings actually matter. For anyone who has an elderly loved one suffering from dementia, this benefit alone can make reminiscence therapy a form of joy for a very confused elder. So when you dye Easter eggs, create easter baskets, do an Easter egg hunt, serve an Easter brunch or dinner, get them involved, let them watch, allow them to help if possible, serve them ritual food or to taste it and ask when how they experienced these rituals, when they were young. If you have old albums of pictures from their childhood of them at Easter, look and the photos with them. Then listen.

Reach Cathy in Social Media

Social media links

YouTube channel:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaoHdozwS0RvKD

Social media links

YouTube channel:  Website: https://cathycress.com/

 

Blog: https://www.cathycress.com/blog/

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Gerontologist/Cathy-Cress-MSW-633836950007072/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cathyjocress

Email: cressgcm@got.net

 

 

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Filed Under: Adult children, Aging, Aging Family, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Dementia, Dementia & Holidays, Easter, Easter and Reminiscence, Easter Rituals, Emotional Quality of Life, Families, GCM Working With Aging Family, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, Good Death, Holiday Rituals in Aging Family, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Quality of Life on Easter Holiday, Quality of Life with Dementia, Reminiscence Therapy, Spiritual Quality of Life Tagged With: aging family, aging parent, aging parent care, aging technology, ancrestory.com, assessing for quality of life, care plan, care plan interventions, family caregivers, Family Caregivers using technology, flip video, genealogy, geriatric care management, geriatric care manager, geritaric care manager, grandfather, grandmothers, grandparents, increasing quality of life, LCSW, oral history, oral history and quality of life, oral history and You Tube, parent care, Quality of Life, quality of life assessment, reminicence and elder, Reminiscence and 4th of Jul;y, Reminiscence and Dementia, Reminiscence on the Holidays, storytelling and elders, technology for caregivers, You Tube, You Tube and storytelling

Caregiver Assessment- What Does It Takes Professionally ?

March 30, 2021

Doing TWO Assessments

To meet the needs of the whole aging family, the care receiver, and the caregivers, GCMs need to begin assessing the caregiver as well as the care receiver. There is a synergy between the caregiver and client – they are interdependent. If the caregiver is stressed or weak the client does not receive good care. They both suffer without supports that a care manager can give them.

A caregiver assessment helps the GCM see this faltering interdependence by using a caregiver assessment. The National Center on Caregiving at the Family Caregiver Alliance calls this a process gathering information describing the caregiving situation and identifying the family caregivers’ particular problems, needs, resources, and strengths. This means that the care manager can see issues from a caregiver’s perspective and can focus on what supports they need to give them the best care. The GCM compares this to the client’s assessment of needs. The result of doing two assessments is discovering both the client/ care receiver needs and restore health and well-being, prevent poor care, client injury or illness, caregiver burnout, trauma or quiting, and unnecessary placement in a nursing home.

Create a Circle of Care

One resource that a GCM can bring to a caregiving family is what Gail Sheehy calls a circle of care. To create this supportive connection, the GCM needs to take her or his coaching skills and put together a support system around the formerly isolated, solitary family caregiver. The GCM can coach the family caregiver to ask for help so the GCM can assist in reorganizing the family so adult siblings can share in the care of the older client with the identified family caregiver. The GCM is what Sheehy calls a compassionate coach who can help the beleaguered caregiver attract and assemble a platform to keep on giving the care she or he wants to give the aging person.

Caregiver Resources

A circle of care includes emotional resources for the direct family caregiver. These emotional resources could and should include adult siblings. Reconnecting midlife brothers and sisters, through the circle of care, is an important GCM task, as siblings are the longest and deepest relationships in any person’s life. The GCM may have to depend on his or her clinical skills in helping siblings with forgiveness or reconnecting siblings who live long distances apart to add them to a circle of care. Midlife siblings have often spent the last 30 years tending to their own families, so the point of reconnection of midlife brothers and sisters often happens when they are in middle age in the midst of a crisis in parent care. This is where the GCM needs to employ clinical skills in midlife sibling work or to find the resources for the family to help with this healing sibling reconnection.

Filed Under: Aging, Aging Family, aging family crisis, aging life business, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, care manager, caregiver, caregiver assessment, Caregiver Burn Out, CAREGIVER RESOUCES, case manager, CIRCLE OF CARE, estranged siblings, GCM COACHING SKILLS, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, midlife siblings, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Siblings Tagged With: caregiver assessment, CAREGIVER RESOURCES, caregiver strain, caregiver stress, Circle of Care, family caregivers, geriatric care manager

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