PHI Leads Sessions at the Pioneer Network Annual Conference

PHI was honored to have facilitated several sessions with direct care workers at the Pioneer Network Conference this past week. The Care Partners and leaders of the Caledonian House in North Riverside, Illinois served as hosts for a site visit.

Conference highlights included:

• Highly interested participants visited the homes to see a deeply transformed model of care for people living with dementia. The homes are comprised of 10 elders living with dementia within a model of person-directed living and empowered direct care staff and nurses.
• Care Partners Bridget Schilling, Faith Seroy, and Shaurice Turner shared their experiences supporting the natural rhythms of each elder while managing the homes with their co-workers on Self-Organized Work Teams.
• House Manager Chris Cortez shared the significant shift to being a coaching leader from a traditional tope down administrative style. The entire team talked about the need to build trust in each other over time to support a high functioning small home.
• Some of the main workforce issues discussed included: self-scheduling of the teams, managing the daily running of the households, and creating reciprocal partnerships with nurses. Visitors expressed many questions about design choices, outcomes for elders and the practical challenges of self-scheduling and house management.
• Care Partners lead the panel in explaining the model with all of its successes and challenges.
• The Caledonian House/ Scottish Home team also came to the conference to lead a breakout session on the Caledonian House story as well as participate in a session lead by PHI’s VP of Workforce Innovations, Sue Misiorski called “In their Own Voice: A Discussion with Care Partners on Recruitment and Retention” which explored the lived experience of being a direct care worker in long term care settings. Care Partners from Hebrew Senior Life Included Daphne Walton and Elise Cagne and from Scottish Home, Dorothy Shinley and Bridget Schilling.

For more information about workforce innovations contact Susan Misiorski, PHI’s Vice President of Workforce Innovations at SMisiorski@phinational.org.