Cathy Cress

Expert in Aging Life and Geriatric Care Management

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Does The Dysfunctional Aging Family Need Mediation Post The Holidays ?

January 4, 2021

If your clients  ‘holiday visit from their family was miserable and you are care manager to the aging parents, a family meeting between the adult sisters and brothers and a mediatory might be needed this January. This will help you decide if you need a mediator or you can be a facilitator at the family meeting. Care Managers can do facilitation but you need very advanced training to be a mediator.

a. Compatible. Does their family generally present as a unit and lock arms together in a crisis? Do you usually work as a team?

b. Fragmented: Is their family unable to work together as a unit? Do their family members and siblings contact friends and outside professionals with their problems, while failing to confide in each other? Do family members ask other family and other

siblings, friends, and outside professionals to keep conversations secret from certain relatives? Is there a cache of family secrets that some family members do not tell others or share? Do kin pit one another against each other when trouble arises? Instead of locking arms in a crisis, does their family point fingers and blame each other?

c. Is their family productive or non-productive?

        1.Productive: Are the family members able to respond to the suggestions of friends or professionals and take necessary action to create change in the family?

         2.Nonproductive: Are any family members unable to mobilize when help is really needed? Do any siblings or other kin feel powerless to act? Is “victim” a term you would use for some family members and or siblings? Do family members ignore the ideas friends or professionals who are trying to transform the sibling/ family dynamics

d. Is their family stable or fragile?

         1.. Stable – When family members have disagreements, do they find a way to solve their problems? Does the family have long-standing relationships and respect the differences in each other?

         2. Fragile: Is there a history of emotional cut-offs or distancing on the part of one or more family members? Is there a pattern of generational divorce, remarriage?

Each family is different but if this family scores 2 out of three you should investigate bringing in a mediator ed6855aa32d877d7fc1ef9ee757e0f17-98.jpg

Sign Up for My Free January Webinar  

5 Vital Clinical Tools to Help Aging Dysfunctional Families-Post Horrid Holidays- 

             Thursday, January 21, 2021

              2:00-3:30 Pacific Standard Time

  Give frantic adult children hope when they desperately call after the holiday  

 Join me and learn how to come to the rescue of concierge dysfunctional families who found coal in their stocking.      

Learn how to!

  • Understand the Dysfunctional Aging Family System you must enter to get care for elders
  • Understand 11 Warning Signs You Are Working with Dysfunctional Family
  • Master Vital Clinical Tools, you to solve client problems
  • Take Six Steps Professional Must Take to Work with These Difficult Families
  • Get care for aging family members when the dysfunctional family members resist

 SIGN UP NOW

Read Dana Curtis Esquire’s Mediation and Geriatric Care Management in Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th Edition 

Filed Under: aging family crisis, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Blog, case manager, Dysfunctional aging family, Dysfunctional Family & Holidays, elder care manager, elder mediator, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, mediation, nurse advocate, nurse care manager Tagged With: aging dysfunctional family, aging family, aging life care manager, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, care manager, case manager, dysfunctional family holidays, dysfunctional family roles, elder mediation, elder mediator, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, mediation, mediator, nurse advocate, nurse care manager, Psychosocial assessment

Does The Dysfunctional Aging Family Need Mediation Post The Holidays ?

January 4, 2020

 

If your clients  ‘holiday visit from their family was miserable and you are care manager to the aging parents, a family meeting between the adult sisters and brothers might be needed this January. This will help you decide if you need a mediator or you can be a facilitator at the family meeting.

9 Warning Signs That Mediation May be Needed

  a.Compatible. Does their family generally present as a unit and lock arms together in a crisis? Do you usually work as a team?

b.Fragmented: Is their family unable to work together as a unit? Do their family members and siblings contact friends and outside professionals with their problems, while failing to confide in each other? Do family members ask other family and other siblings, friends and outside professionals to keep conversations secret from certain relatives? Is there a cache of family secrets that some family members do not tell others or share? Do kin pit one another against each other when trouble arises? Instead of locking arms in a crisis, does their family point fingers and blame each other?

c.Is their family productive or non-productive?

        1,.Productive: Are the family members able to respond to the suggestions of friends or professionals and take necessary action to create change in the family?

         2,.Nonproductive: Are any family members unable to mobilize when help is really needed? Do any siblings or other kin feel powerless to act? Is “victim” a term you would use for some family members and or siblings? Do family members ignore the ideas of friends or professionals who are           trying to transform the sibling/ family dynamics

d.Is their family stable or fragile?

         1.. Stable – When family members have disagreements, do they find a way to solve their problems?               Does the family have long-standing relationships and respect the differences in each other?

         2.Fragile: Is there a history of emotional cut-offs or distancing on the part of one or more family members? Is there a pattern of generational divorce, remarriage?

Each family is different but if this family scores 2 out of three you should investigate bringing in a mediator ed6855aa32d877d7fc1ef9ee757e0f17-98.jpg

Read Dana Curtis Esquire’s Mediation and Geriatric Care Management in Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th Edition 

Filed Under: aging family crisis, Aging Life Care, Aging Life Care Assocaition, aging life care manager, Blog, case manager, Dysfunctional aging family, Dysfunctional Family & Holidays, elder care manager, elder mediator, Geriatric Care Management Business, Geriatric Care Manager, geriatric care manager, geriatric social worker, mediation, nurse advocate, nurse care manager Tagged With: aging dysfunctional family, dysfunctional family holidays, dysfunctional family roles, elder mediation, elder mediator, mediation, mediator

Conflict Skills in the Aging Family- Do You Have Them?

October 9, 2015

Dys-fam90264_CH22_FIG02.jpg

  Geriatric care manager’s do facilitation– but should they do mediation?

 

 Although sometimes used interchangeably, the terms mediation and facilitation refer to different processes.

 

 Broadly stated, facilitation requires meeting-management skills, whereas medi­ation requires conflict management skills. In facilitation, a neutral facilitator enables a group to make decisions and accomplish a task by guiding them in effective communi­cation processes.

The facilitator maintains a collaborative and respectful environment that encourages full participation and helps the group overcome barriers to achieving its goals.

 

A geriatric care manager should not do mediation unless they have at least 100 hours of mediation training and conflict management skills. They are “ accidental mediators” but can become trained mediators. Find out more.

 

Read the new chapter on mediation and geriatric care management. Get the new Handbook of Geriatric Care Management 4th edition by DanaCurtis MA JD now– or out in Kindle on Amazon in November (to keep up with technology)

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: elder mediation, elder mediator, geriatric care manager, mediation

Geriatric Care Management Tools – Expertise

July 24, 2013

Dys-fam90264_CH22_FIG02.jpg

Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: family meeting, geriatric care manager, geriatric expertise, mediation

Dysfunctional Aging Families Can Wreak Havoc at End of Life

April 18, 2013

PDF-Cover-of-11-10-12My-Geriatric-Care-Management-Agency.jpg

 

Feuding families are what I call dysfunctional families. They blame each other instead of locking arms in a crisis. What do Feuding families do at the end of life? They have dysfunctional communication. Often they do not communicate at all or engage in destructive communication. They see one another as enemies. They demonize one another

They sabotage resolution.

They actively compound already difficult decisions with intractable, interpersonal conflict. They create problems independent of the underlying issues.

 

What are some of the struggles that these aging dysfunctional families with fractured communication can face.

Aging parents who lack capacity to make decisions have no advance directives, DPOA and a health-care proxy and adult siblings, who must make end of life decisions, can’t agree

 

Withdrawal of life support with no designate health care agent and adult children and/or spouse disagree

 

Pain management adult children and/or and spouse disagree.

 

Mediation is a tool can be  a good resource for dysfunctional families at the end of life. It can help with these difficult families face the death of a parent without fracturing the entire family.It can allow an older person die without pain inflicted by their own family.

 

I will be speaking about this tomorrow with mediator and elder law attorney Dana Curtis on April 19, 2013, at our presentation for the national conference of the National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers in Philadelphia.

Our topic is ,”The GCM as the Accidental Mediator: Fretting and Fighting or Feuding: Intergenerational Conflict in the Adult Family at End of Life”, Philadelphia, Penna. http://www.caremanager.org/ai1ec_event/29th-annual-napgcm-conference/?instance_id=546

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Aging Tagged With: adult sibling, aging family, aging parent care, aging parent crisis, care planning, caregiver burnout, conservator, death, dysfunctional aging family, dysfunctional family, dysfuntional family, elder care crisis, end of life, end of life family meeting, estranged siblings, families fretting at end of life, fretting at end of life, geraitric assessment, geriatric care management, geriatric care manager, geriatric care managers, mediation, mediator, My Geriatric Care Management Operations Manual, National Association of Geriatric Care Managers Conference, National Geriatric Care Manager Month, no advanced directive, no DPOA, no health care proxy, withdraw of life support

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