April 19, 2024: We Honor Veterans Program and End-of-Life Care for Veterans
Location: Cape Girardeau Public Library, Cape Girardeau

The purpose of this program is to bring awareness to issues veterans face at end-of-life and to explain the We Honor Veterans Program. Veterans face different issues at end-of-life that are not often experienced by non-veterans. The We Honor Veterans Program helps navigate caregivers through these issues as well as provides education regarding resources within the community.

April 26, 2024: Person-Centered Program Planning
Location: Brentmoor Retirement Community, St. Louis

Programming is at the center of a community’s culture and can have a ripple effect throughout a community, by fostering inclusivity and an all-hands-on deck approach. We will be discussing various ways to incorporate person-centered values during the programming planning process; as well as giving examples of real-life programming that embodies the whole team and whole community approach. Attendees will be asked to bring a copy of the community activity calendar for an interactive approach to looking at those calendars through another set of lens’.

March 27, 2024: Supporting Person Centered Cultures
Special Guest: Stacey Bergmann, Director of Community and Network Relations, Center for Innovation (CFI)

In her role at CFI, Stacey is carrying on the mission of Pioneer Network, working together with leaders from the state culture change coalitions. Together with MC5 board member and conversation host, Kim Fanning, attendees will explore with Stacey what is happening around the country as CFI, along with state coalitions, work to find ways to help providers grow their person-centered cultures.

April 3, 2024: Care Connection – Opportunities to Create Positive Aging Experiences
Location: First United Methodist Church Celebration Center, Sedalia
Presenters: Wendy Martin, MHA; Rona McNally, Care Connection; Marilyn Gunter, BSW,MSW

Join facilitators from Care Connection who will provide information about their person-centered approach to services. During this presentation it will be shared how Care Connection maintains a person-centered focus in the development and delivery of services. Attendees will learn the importance of family caregiver support for person-centered care and how the Long-Term Care Ombudsman program supports individuals’ rights and choices, serving as advocates and educators. Also, the Missouri SMP (Senior Medicare Patrol), will inform attendees of current Medicare/Medicaid fraud trends and the importance of protecting health care benefits.

March 6, 2024: The Validation Method:  Connect and Communicate with Older Adults
Presenter: Vicki deKlerk, Executive Director, The Validation Institute

Over 37 years ago, when reality orientation was the norm, Naomi Feil, a woman with unique empathy and insight into the world of disoriented elders, created the Validation Method, motivating older adults with cognitive decline to communicate more, relieve stress, and enhance dignity and happiness in their final stage of life.

Today, the validation method is practiced around the world, and her daughter, Vicki deKlerk, continues her work through the Validation Training Institute, providing education, quality standards and easy pathways for learning this evidence-based method.

Through the magic of Zoom, Vicki will join us from the Netherlands, using interactive exercises, she will describe, demonstrate and share 2 key prerequisite skills of the Validation Method. There will be an opportunity to share in conversation and engage in a Q & A with attendees.

January 25, 2024: You’re Not Special: Navigating Staffing in the Me Culture
Presenters: Wendy Boren, BSN, RN, QIPMO, University of Missouri, Sinclair School of Nursing and Nicky Martin, MPA, BS, LNHA, CDPQIPMO, Sinclair School of Nursing

Staffing is a constant battle, but the current culture makes staffing healthcare a different kind of challenge than we’ve ever faced before. Recruiting and retaining staff in the “me” culture requires ingenuity, patience, compromise, and a new spin on professionalism. This program will highlight those challenges through interactive discussion and give participants real tools to creative winning strategies that may just take them from “me” to “we.”

Join members of the team from MC5 and special guests the 4th Wednesday of each month as we share stories and best practices, explore challenges faced, and together re-envision what Person-Directed Care can look like for seniors in Missouri, especially for those living and working in Missouri’s Long-Term Care and Assisted Livings communities.

October 25, 2023: Filling the Holidays with Meaning and Purpose
Special Guest: Carrie Chiusano, Executive Director for Presbyterian SeniorCare Network’s Dementia Care Center of Excellence
Conversation Starter: Come prepared to discuss best practices as well as challenges faced as you work to make the holiday season one that has meaning and purpose for the residents in your community.

Special guest, Carrie Chiusano has thirty plus years of long-term care experience with Presbyterian SeniorCare Network. Most of those years were spent helping to shape and implement the internationally renowned Woodside Place philosophy of specialty care for persons living with Alzheimer’s disease and other related dementias. Carrie is a Certified Dementia Practitioner (CDP) and a Certified Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia Care Trainer (CADDCT) through the National Council of Certified Dementia Practitioners.

October 10, 2023: What a Living Resident can Teach Long-Term Care Staff
Presenter: Leslie Pedtke, MHA, LNHA

In this virtual event we will be discussing ‘Through the Looking Glass’: a program developed at Aviston Countryside Manor to teach empathy to our caregivers. Staff members moved into the nursing home, lived the role of a real diagnosis, and accepted daily ‘challenges’ our residents experience every day.

From learning the importance of communication to creating meaningful engagement, the resulting insights of these caregivers sensitized other staff members – new and veteran – to practical and effective ways that they were able to immediately improve daily care for residents.

Join members of the team from MC5 and special guests the 4th Wednesday of each month as we share stories and best practices, explore challenges faced, and together re-envision what Person-Directed Care can look like for seniors in Missouri, especially for those living and working in Missouri’s Long-Term Care and Assisted Livings communities.

Using Zoom, the format will be casual – a conversation – with special guests inviting participants to share, ask questions, explore, and plan for how through MC5, we can re-imagine and “move the movement” forward as we come out of the pandemic.

March 22, 2023: Re-Imaging Person-Directed Culture: It Starts with a Conversation
Special Guest: Julie Wilson, RN, Regulatory Compliance Manager ICF/IID Unit & COMRU Unit, Section for Long-Term Care Regulation, Division of Regulation and Licensure, DHSS
Conversation Starter: One of MC5’s founders and past board President, Julie will give us a glimpse into the successes and challenges faced over the years as she shares the story of MC5 and the Culture Change Movement in Missouri. A look at the past to help guide us as we envision the future.

April 26, 2023: Save the Date
Special Guest: Sheila Winchester, Regulatory Compliance Manager, Quality Assurance and Education, Section for Long-Term Care Regulation at Missouri DHSS
Conversation: Providers and regulators share a common vision as evidenced by the Person-centered philosophy and practices that are incorporated into and supported by regulations, both Federal and State. Sheila will share ways that regulators and providers can work together as we move forward following the pandemic.

May 24, 2023: Save the Date
Special Guest: Penny Cook, Chief Culture Officer, Center for Innovation (CFI) / Pioneer Network
Conversation Starter: A goal of CFI/PN is to help support and grow state culture change coalitions. Penny will share what is happening at coalitions around the country as well as through initiatives such as the Moving Forward Coalition.

March 29, 2023: Transform the Culture of Care

The alliance between The Green House Project and Pioneer Network brings together two leading drivers of cultural transformation in long-term care.

For organizations that don’t have the ability to build new or substantially renovate an existing building, we have an entire suite of solutions that bring the best of empowered, elder-directed care to even the most institutional settings.

July 23-26, 2023: Ready to Impact
Location: Pittsburg, PA

It’s official: Green House and Pioneer are coming together for one incredible event.

Everything you’ve come to expect from our conferences — fellowship, education, new ideas, and fun — now with even more leaders, caregivers, visionaries, and supporters from around the country and the world!

The theme of the first annual Center for Innovation Conference, Ready to Impact, reflects the power our organizations have under one banner. Together, let’s make 2023 a year of real change for elders in the United States and around the world, uniting in one voice to broaden the reach and deepen the impact of our work to build something better.

This year Carmen Bowman will be hosting and presenting the Back to the Future: Moving Dining Forward series with Linda Bump MPH, RD (Registered Dietitian, Licensed Nursing Home Administrator and Action Pact consultant).

February 17, 2023: Are your residents still enduring restricted diets?
March 17, 2023: Are your residents still offered the outdated altered consistency diets?
April 21, 2023: Are your residents still offered artificial food/supplements?
May 19, 2023: Are your residents still only offered the main meal or the alternate/token choice?
June 16, 2023: Are your residents still offered set meal times?
July 21, 2023: Are your residents still offered institutional meals?
August 18, 2023: Are your residents still not involved in preparing food?
September 15, 2023: Is your dining experience still institutional?
October 20, 2023: Are you still not offering the opportunity for people to help themselves?
November 17, 2023: Are you still not celebrating various ethnicities & incorporating themes into the life of your home starting with food and the dining experience?

February 17, 2023: Culture Change and Hospice End of Life Care
Location: Farmington Public Library

In this presentation, it will be discussed promoting a culture change of person-centered care with the perception of hospice and end-of-life care and provide knowledge on how receiving the full hospice benefit promotes better quality of life and dignity.

February 22, 2023: Unload Medication Overload: Making Sense of Polypharmacy and Deprescribing (Virtual Meeting)
Presenter: Hedva Barenholtz Levy, PharmD, BCPS, BCGP, Director, HbL, PharmaConsulting

Medication overload or polypharmacy is a main culprit of medication-related problems, reduced quality of life and high healthcare costs among older individuals.

Consequences of polypharmacy are multifold and can be prevented with a more judicious approach to medication use. Efforts to address widespread medication overload are gaining momentum, including deprescribing of drug therapy. Professionals who work with older adults need to be familiar with the latest trends and strategies to optimize or “right-size” medications and serve as patient and family advocates.

January 20, 2023: Back to Food = Love, Life, Health and Wellbeing = Compliance and Culture Change

This is the first in the 2023 series, Back to the Future: Moving Dining Forward.

From token to true choice, using regulations and standards to help people living in long-term care to eat what they want to eat, and to live the lives they want to live.

Come out of the pandemic better. Take advantage of this time and do it different. Learn how to shift your culture to honor each individual and get back to normal, to HOME, particularly in all things dining and vibrant daily living.

Each webinar will be framed by culture change practices, the Dining Practice Standards, leaning into CMS requirements and the Artifacts of Culture Change 2.0, the domains of wellbeing embedded in the CMS RoPs, and Kitwood’s basic human needs.

January 17, 2023: Changing the Culture of Aging Through Meaningful Engagement
Presenter: Joan Devine, RN, Former Director of Education, Pioneer Network

Historically as we age, society has told us that our days of contributing are over and it’s time to sit back, relax and become the receiver of care and services. Based on this belief, the goal for many providers of senior services has been to design passive activities, things to keep people busy; to help pass the time. Communities around the country and around the world have heard the voice of Elders, and that voice is telling them that keeping busy is not enough!

It’s about engagement, meaning and purpose, and a chance to contribute to the greater good. What communities are learning is that when Elders are part of a “community commitment”, it not only benefits them and their senior living community, it sends a message that Elders are still valuable members of society.

This virtual session will explore what active engagement looks like based on the principles of the Citizenship Model as well as by the stories of nursing homes and assisted living communities that were recipients of the Pioneer Network’s Community Commitment Awards.

West Central MC5 Region

November 2, 2022: Are We Making Progress or Spinning Our Wheels?
Presenter: Carol Scott, BS, Former MO Ombudsman, Trainer

This presentation will take a look at the past and discuss what the future can hold. Culture change doesn’t have an end date. It’s a continuous road that organizations must commit to on a daily basis.

Farmington MC Region

November 4, 2022: Psychiatry and Culture Change
Presenter: Gabe Crawford, NP

This program will give attendees the opportunity to learn new approaches to psychiatry related to culture change. Attendees will learn alternate treatments for dementia residents and will learn how to decrease the use of psychotropics.

September 27, 2022: Person-Directed Leadership: Creating a Coaching Culture
October 4, 2022: Invest in Your Workforce for 2023
October 11, 2022: Communicating for Policy Success

Join Amanda Loomis of SWBR for a dynamic exploration of the ways that design can promote vitality and wellbeing for elders – and how small touches can go a long way toward revitalizing a nursing home, assisted living community, or other eldercare setting.

June 15, 2022: Care – Who We Are. What We Do. Where We Go From Here.
Location: Maryland Heights Community Center, St. Louis

The program will explore and highlight insights and learned experiences from internationally renowned geriatricians, educators, and leaders in the long-term care community. Join us as we reflect on the journey we have made together as a community and gain inspiration for the steps that we are yet to take.

Other presentation topics include residents’ rights, addressing loneliness and isolation for long-term care residents, and the interplay between ageism as a social determinant of health and end-of-life care.

July 24-27, 2022: Pioneering a New Culture of Aging: Honoring the Past, Treasuring the Present, Shaping the Future
Location: Sheraton Downtown Denver in Denver, Colorado

Pioneer Network’s goal is to bring together individuals from across the United States and other countries who care deeply about changing the culture of aging and to make this event meaningful to people who support culture change in all settings within the elder care continuum.