Does The Dysfunctional Aging Family Need Mediation Post The Holidays ?

December 9, 2021

Does an Aging Family Need Mediation Post Holidays?

Do you need mediation for the dysfunctional family after the holidays? 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? Does a dysfunctional family need mediation?

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? You need to assess -does the dysfunctional family need mediation?

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? Do you need mediation for the dysfunctional family after the holidays?

Each family is different but if this family scores 2 out of three you should investigate bringing in a mediator

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11 Vital Clinical Tools For Desperate Families Post-Holidays

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End of Life-When Do You Need Mediation?

February 23, 2021

Why do some families need mediation at the end of life? Mediation is a voluntary process in which the parties, with the help of an impartial third party mediator, work together to resolve their differences or solve a problem they were unable to address satisfactorily without help. These family differences especially happen to dysfunctional families but can beset any family at the end of life. They are faced with overwhelming emotions and decisions that demand that the family work together as a team. What happens to dysfunctional and even nearly normal families during this trying time? They don’t gather as a team. They fight. They fret and they feud. What are the results of this fighting, fretting, and feuding in families at the end of life?

Unresolved family conflicts emerge

Dysfunctional families become more dysfunctional

Family members’ grief, pain, and anxiety are often masked as anger and presents as conflict (past and present)

Older person dies without resolving important family issues

Older person dies in conflict, not in peace

Deliver a Good End of Life- Add Death and Dying to Your Care Management Agency

Serve Your Client Until Death Do You Part

Join me Thursday, March 11, and learn why End of Life Services Are a perfect new service for care managers

In this 1 ½ -hour webinar you will learn how to

Transition the patient/family through the five stages of death
Help clients be active participants in their care
Give the family/caregiver tools to manage care
Provide family center care to caregiver and family
Choose the right support services through all stages of death
Introduce Hospice and Palliative care and work with their team
Use ALCA End of Life Benefits During COVID
Use COVID -19 Family Coaching for GCM
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If you really want to add End of Life to your care management business sign up for this webinar now

Dysfunctional Aging Families Can Wreak Havoc at End of Life

February 18, 2021

What do Feuding families do at the end of life?

When a family member is facing death and dying dysfunctional families have flawed conversations. Often they do not communicate at all or engage in destructive banter. They see one another as enemies. They demonize one another.

Feuding families are what I call dysfunctional families. They blame each other instead of locking arms in a crisis.

They sabotage resolution.

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

Facing Fractured Communication

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

Aging parents who lack the 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 designated health care agent and adult children and/or spouse disagree

Pain management adult children and/or and spouse disagree.

Answer to Fractured Family at End of Life – Mediation.

Mediation is a tool that 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 to die without pain inflicted by their own family.

Deliver a Good End of Life- Add Death and Dying to Your Care Management Agency

Serve Your Client Until Death Do You Part

Join me Thursday, March 11, and learn why End of Life Services Are a perfect new service for care managers

In this 1 ½ -hour webinar you will learn how to

1.Transition the patient/family through the five stages of death

2.Help clients be active participants in their care

3.Give the family/caregiver tools to manage care

4. Provide family center care to caregiver and family

5. Choose the right support services through all stages of death

6.Introduce Hospice and Palliative care and work with their team

7. Use ALCA End of Life Benefits During COVID

8.Use COVID -19 Family Coaching for GCM

Sign Up

If you really want to add End of Life to your care management business sign up for this webinar now

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

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

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

October 9, 2015

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)

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

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