By Denise Hyde
Eden Alternative Membership Engagement Guide
When you need daily assistance in your life, is it your desire to live in a nursing home or in your own home?
If you Google this question, you will learn that recent surveys of Americans show that 70% are unwilling to live in a nursing home and 92% prefer to age in place (at their own home or a family member’s home).
I find the first percentage sad and telling. From my perspective, this is a shame. There are very caring people who have awoken to the possibility that it can be different and created places (nursing homes) where people thrive and grow with the Eden Approach®. We need more of these places!
In my career I have also witnessed the individual, among the 92%, who wanted to age at home and then ended up with loneliness, helplessness, and boredom that wore away at their spirit. I have visited homes where the living room is now filled with a hospital bed, medical equipment and treatment supplies. No place for visitors to sit and have a nice conversation with the individual living there. I have heard stories about how challenging it is to find consistent people who come in to provide needed support. Choices may be limited, visitors fall off, and life becomes less than desired. The home has become an institution.
Social Capital
I remember conversations with Dr. Bill Thomas about how we can get caught up in the idea of aging in place. We want so badly to be fiercely independent, yet we live in an interdependent society. Dr. Thomas has always been an advocate of aging in community. It is through our social capital that we are able to experience a life worth living.
Social capital isn’t just about the numbers of people in our lives. It is about the spirit of those relationships. The Eden Alternative® uses the term care partner to define this relationship. The term partner implies that there is giving and receiving available to everyone involved in the care partnership, especially the person who is accepting support. It is about having a pro-aging and ability-inclusive mindset. Care partnering is about honoring each person’s uniqueness and focusing on growth and development for all. It is about really tuning in to each other and creating a responsive system of support that meets people where they are at each day.
Social capital is about the spirit of the relationships!
Making the Move to Care Partnerships
How do you make this care partnership happen, even in your own home? That’s where the Eden Approach® and the Ten Principles come into play. The Eden Alternative brings it altogether in a training called Caregiving to Care Partnering: The Eden Approach® at Home.
Through this training, participants learn that to keep the institution at bay so you can live a meaningful life in your own home as you age and live with changing abilities, the care partner team needs to:
- Become aware of any assumptions, attitudes, beliefs or fears they have regarding their own aging that could undermine their ability to engage as a care partner.
- Frame quality of life in terms of what people CAN do rather than any limitations (real or perceived).
- View the term ‘care’ as helping another to grow, nurturing the human spirit as well as the body.
- Be empowered to collaborate, adjust, and alter approaches to meet the needs of the individual in the moment.
Want to Learn More?
If care partnering is something you want to learn more about, consider signing up for Caregiving to Care Partnering: The Eden Approach at Home today. If you are an Eden Member, be sure to use your discount code.
Care partnering is a life-giving mindset shift. Are you ready to embrace it?
About The Eden Alternative
Our Mission: To improve the well-being of Elders and their care partners by transforming the communities in which they live and work.
The Eden Alternative offers educational opportunities, consultation and a proven approach to honoring Elderhood – with resources for Elders and their care partners to elevate well-being.
