Hello, my name is Jeff Cave. I’m the owner and operator of Parent Placement Solutions. After 22 years of running operations for large scale communities, I decided now we’re in our fifth year to focus on families going through the process when a loved one might be in the hospital or in rehab. It’s a typical scenario because they had a fall at home and now going home might not be an option. So let’s find that. So our core business is to find what’s the right setting. And so we do an assessment and we navigate through the process to find out would they do better in a large scale community through residential care or maybe they have some dementia on board where maybe it’s memory care is the right needs. And so today I wanted to focus on those three areas assisted living communities, residential care and memory care.
So first up, let’s focus on assisted living communities and these are large scale kind of resort style living. You got apartments anywhere from studios to two bedroom, two bath and that’s your private space and you decorate it and you bring in all your own furnishings. But it’s a much more social environment. So as far as directorships, you’ve got your executive director, but that director also has directors of departments. And so you’ve got an executive chef who’s in charge of the dining and you might have, depending on the size, dining room manager, you’ve got a bus driver, you’ve got a business office director and probably the funnest component in this environment is the activity director because the activity director is coming up with the right programs for residents to participate in. So these larger scale settings are much more social, much more common space within the community to do activities both inside and outside.
So you’ve got a bus driver that can do shopping days, doctor days, but also do travel to go do events outside the building. And so while care is really the reason why a move is being made, you’ve got a resident services director that’s in charge of care, but these larger settings are designed for residents who can navigate longer hallways and want that social stimullization of having a lot of people around. Like I said, it’s anywhere from 70 to well over a hundred apartments and then that many more residents that live under one main building.
Next up, I want to talk about residential care or board and care kind of means the same thing where it’s a home that’s in a neighborhood setting and you might pass them as you drive through town or in a neighborhood because it’s a home and they focus on typically six residents per residential care home. And to give you the difference or the scope of how many are out there, there’s about 175 and for every one of the large scale communities there’s probably about 20 residential care within at least Sonoma County. So a lot more choice, a lot more flexibility because of location, you’re going to have these throughout Sonoma County. And so like I mentioned earlier, it’s about finding the right care, number one. Number two is the right location and three is going to be the right price. And so these communities are more intimate.
It’s focused on care and the flexibility of knowing there’s more areas. If you live down the west side or the east side or north or south, there’s some care homes that if they have openings, I help the families navigate those tours and finding is that the right fit. So sometimes I show a family both the large and the small so they have an idea of what the main differences are so they know when they make their final decision, they’ve seen at least a variety of some. And then third up, I want to talk about memory care and memory care is, as it’s stated, it’s for residents with dementia or Alzheimer’s who have a memory need and so it’s going to be an environment that’s much more structured than the other two we’ve discussed. So the structured environment consistency on a day-to-day basis, they’re going to have activities but it’s going to be geared to the resident’s physical and mental needs.
It’s also going to be if it’s a true memory care unit, it’s going to have a secure delayed egress exit so a resident can’t just leave.
It’ll alarm the doors and then the staff can come and redirect the resident back to the group setting or back to their room. And so it’s really finding the right setting for physically what the resident needs, for spiritual, any number of things and then cognitively what are their needs. And so that’s what my job is, is to help the families through that process of finding the right care and then that right setting because it could be like the family wants the larger scale community and when I do my assessment, I find I don’t know if they’re going to do as well in a large setting that a residential care might be better for them or if there is dementia on board, their options are going to be more limited. So we take all that into account and we really are … My company’s job is to help them navigate that process and when they have questions to be there and available so they make the right choice for what’s needed.
So hope that helps. If you have any questions, you know how to reach us and if there’s ever a need, give us a call. Jeff gave Parent Placement Solutions. Thanks so much.
