Merry Christmas Many family caregivers are drinking today . They will ruin the holiday celebration one way or another. Maybe they are drugging themselves with the telly watching” My Dysfunctional Family” on CMT  thinking compared to them I am so damn normal.

How do you as a geriatric care manager change the script for these aging dysfunctional families – family caregivers and older members who are supposed to care for but can’t. How does a professional GCM make the characters transform? 

 

It’s actually simple –but loaded with skill- give them hope. You need to enter that living room with the TV blaring , bottle tipping and use yourself to give them hope that things will change. It’s the best tool a geriatric care manager toolbox- especially on and after the dreaded holidays.

 

 

Use of self: Perhaps the most powerful tool for the geriatric care manager. Is use of self. . It provides to families with guarded optimism. GCM’s have to offer a vision of the future that is based not only on a desire for hopeful outcomes. This has come  from our own clinical knowledge and belief that change to  their nasty crippled, family system  is indeed possible.

By being direct, empathetic, and nonjudgmental, we become a holding bay for stressed caregivers, creating a place of safety, confidentiality, consistency, and support. Finally, GCM’s offer our clients a model of perseverance. By not giving up on the possibility of positive change and by exploring all options, the GCM enables families to feel that, regardless of the outcome, they have done all that they can to support the older adult.

You are like  Judy Garland  on the holiday offering hope

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
From now on
our troubles will be out of sight

Give the” Merry Christmas – next year