Forging a path for person-directed care

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This article was published 19/05/2022 (1094 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s lunchtime at The Cottages and the sound of cutlery clanging against dishes and chatter at the dining table fills the bright, modern furnished dining room.

Today’s menu is courtesy of a tenant’s request for her birthday: chicken fingers, fries and fresh green bean soup.

After the meal is done and the dishes are clean the residents who live in the communal home can go to their respective rooms to unwind, run errands, complete a jigsaw puzzle in the den or, simply, do whatever they please.

It’s a departure from what many traditional assisted living facilities look like.

The home, operated by Silver Lining Care, looks much like any regular residence: a spacious kitchen, living room with plush couches, a backyard fitted with patio furniture and a front stoop with room to sit and watch the rest of the neighbourhood on Beaver Crescent.

The autonomy granted to tenants at The Cottages was a deliberate decision by its creator.

For a time Silver Lining Care founder Carolyn Peters struggled to find care she felt appropriate for her mother with dementia. In 2010 her family applied for Family Managed Care funding through Southern Health and found the program’s funding granted greater freedom in care versus that of a traditional facility.

Through this, Peters learned to deconstruct and redefine what it meant to provide dignified elder care. Before long she opened her own facility in Winkler to fill a gap in person-directed care seemingly absent in the southern part of the province.

“I wouldn’t want somebody to tell me when I had to go to bed, or what I had to do next,” she said from the newly built, 10-person home in Steinbach.

“Here we can allow them to be the boss.”

Tenants are free to come and go as they please and, as they require, have access to staff and nurses on an on-call basis. By working in conjunction with Southern Health, instead of moving tenants to a different facility as needs change supplies are brought in house to keep care consistent.

The housing model came to be largely through inspiration found in American public health researcher Dr. Atul Gawande’s book, Being Mortal, Peters said.

Centered in the teachings of providing choice to those needing to spend their final years in care, Being Mortal was the platform in how Silver Lining Care would operate.

For instance, tenants can work alongside caregivers to prepare meals rather than feel like they’re being served in a facility. Whether it’s baking bread alongside staff or having the freedom to fetch themselves a snack when they please Peters believes options in how one spends their day provides a greater quality of life.

“Everyone needs a purpose,” Peters said.

In the 2021 Census Statistics Canada reported the nation’s demographic was aging. In Manitoba there are 229,050 people aged 65 and over, making for 17 percent of the province’s total population. The same percentage represents the 65-plus population in Steinbach, an increase of one percent since the 2016 Census.

By 2036 the Canadian senior’s population is expected to increase to between 23 and 25 percent.

As the need for housing accustomed to older populations increases, so does the desire for families to provide homes for their loved ones which integrate socialization.

A national report on the social isolation of seniors says socially isolated seniors are more at risk of negative health behaviors and is considered a risk factor for elder abuse.

Peters said the congregate living quarters in The Cottages brings her family peace of mind; her mother is one of the 10 tenants living in the first phase of the home.

“My sister and I can be her daughters again instead of simply always being her caregivers,” she said.

The second phase of The Cottages is expected to be open and operational by next year, expanding the person-directed care Peters feels is the future of assisted living: individualized care.

“People over policy, that’s our goal.”