Are you committed to culture change, but unsure about how your home's households will operate and interact under the Household Model? This intensely practical two-day workshop will equip your household leadership staff with the tools and knowledge they need to keep your home running smoothly during and after the transition.

Sessions of Action Pact's Household Leadership Training are currently scheduled for the following dates:

Oct 14 - 16, 2008 [FULL]
Mar 24 - 26, 2009
July 14 - 16, 2009

No one wants to live in a nursing home. Moving to a nursing home is viewed by most elders and much of society as going to a place to die, a place that requires residents to relinquish their control over their daily lives, a place that reduces its 'homeless' inhabitants to bingo, wheelchairs and food served on trays. Not enough people want to work in a nursing home either: employee turnover often hovers around 100% annually; shortage of nurses and CNAs often result in understaffed shifts, staff working double shifts and agency staff - often total strangers to the residents - providing personal care.

The Household Model as a way of designing the physical environment and the organizational structure, fosters a deep transformation where residents live a good life and staff are happy and involved. A resident living in a household in a licensed skilled nursing facility once told me: "I had a choice when I came here. I could come here or could go to a nursing home. Thank God I chose here." And that's the way it is. Households may still be licensed as skilled nursing, but they are not defined by the words 'nursing home'. Instead they create an atmosphere of a good daily life, filled with choice and accessibility. Of both privacy and community, and the ability to move between the two as desired. Of independence and interdependence. Of both house and home.

This workshop details the life that is within our power to create. A life of both house and home. A life that fosters daily life as we all know it. Getting up and going to bed when desired. Bathing how and when one prefers. Being with friends, and being alone at one's desire. Engaging in daily life as one chooses, whether cleaning, cooking, reading, playing or befriending. Being able to eat when and what one chooses. Life can be good in a household. This workshop focuses the participants on the role that they can play to create this environment and on the skills that they need to lead, coach, guide and problem-solve.

We begin with the Essential Elements needed in the Household, move to the competencies required of staff who work there, and offer a variety of case problems to study together.

Upon completion, participants will be able to:

• List the Elements of households (Shields and Norton, In Pursuit of the Sunbeam, 2006) and discuss how to develop and strengthen each element in the household;
• Identify the leadership skills that they need as individuals and put a self-growth plan in place for growing this skill set;
• broadly understand their Performance Management responsibilities and list out the interpersonal strengths that they personally need to grow to approach these responsibilities;
• Indicate the key competencies necessary in the household and how to foster them;
• list the hard and soft skills of versatile work in the households, and identify how their organization is tackling this work;
• Describe why dining and kitchen life is central to life in the household and how they might encourage its development;
• Realize the potential of daily life in the household through an exploration of life enhancement skills;
• Discuss staffing approaches related to maintaining a healthy, consistently assigned staff;
• Define a self-led team, evaluate themselves in relation to growing team, and formulate an action plan for on-going development of a self-led team approach
• develop a beginning understanding of the QI process when applied in a household specific manner; identify key issues for further guidance from their facility.
• speak clearly on the concepts of a learning organization and the value of people discovering and utilizing each others strengths to benefit the organization;

Prepare yourself to take a major facilitating role in shaping the future of long-term care. Registering is easy. Call Action Pact at (414)258-3649, or download the registration form, print it out and fax it to us at (414)444-8815.