Twin Town Villa expansion almost complete!

It seems like yesterday when we made the announcement that Twin Town Villa was expanding their community.  Where does the time go?

For those that drive by every day, you’ve seen our progress and have probably been wondering “when are we going to see then inside?”.  Well, that day is coming quickly for us.

As we sit today, our plan is to open in mid-February.  We don’t have a specific target date yet, but that will be coming in the next two weeks.  

Right now, we are beginning our process of hiring new team members to work in our memory care community.  If you are a dedicated, caring individual, who has worked with someone with memory loss, we would love to hear from you!  Contact Lisa, Director of Resident Services at (218) 643-9542.

We are very excited to welcome back to our company April Thompson as our Lead Care Manager in the memory care community.  April had previously worked with Welcome Home Health Care in another community in Alexandria.  April is a solid leader and we are excited to have her on our team.

As a side note, Twin Town Villa now has two former North Star Leadership Award winners working in Breckenridge.  April won the award in 2010, and Judi Durkin, Lead Care Manager in the assisted living community won in 2011!  What a solid team!

We have very excited about our new expansion project.  We’ll release more details as we get closer to our opening date.  Also look for the Grand Opening to happen in early March 2013.

For more information or to schedule your personal introduction to our community, contact Lisa at (218) 643-9542 or visit their website at 
http://wtohdevelopment.com/Breckenridge.htm

 

 

Ground breaking ceremony held at Twin Town Villa

On Wednesday, July 25th, Twin Town Villa held their ground breaking ceremony for their new expansion project.

 

Several community members attended the event.  It was fun to see everyone get excited about what the project is going to bring to Breckenridge.

 

We had the official ground breaking ceremony.

 

We even had some residents and staff come outside to participate.  From the look on their faces, they seemed to be extremely excited for what’s to come.The equipment is all lined up and ready to start moving ground.

As we mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, this is a $3.5 million dollar expansion to Twin Town Villa and will bring additional assisted living apartments and a memory care community.

We expect to hire an additional 12-15 new positions to work in the community.  Over time, we expect that additional positions could be added based on level of care needed.

Welcome Home operates 7 senior living communities in Minnesota and Wisconsin. We’ve been providing a warm, homelike atmosphere for resident to call home since 1994 in many different states. Our goal is to focus on the individual residents needs. Over the past several years, we’ve seen and heard from residents and family members to add more service options. By adding these programs to our community, it gives older adults more options for their care and life experiences.

As we age, we want to live in a place that is fun, eat great food, and have our needs cared for.  We believe that adding this community, with the additional common areas such as the movie theater, additional apartments and care programs, gives our residents and their families what they’ve been looking for.

For more information about Twin Town Villa or Welcome Home Management, please visit our website at www.wtohdevelopment.com.  You can get an “inside look” in to the daily lives of our residents by visiting all of our communities Facebook pages.  A link to those can be found on our website as well.

 

Meeting of the Minds Dementia Conference 2012

This weekend, Welcome Home and some of our community representatives will be attending the Meeting of the Minds conference from the MN/Dakota Alzheimer’s Association in St. Paul.

We are proud to be one of the sponsors for this year’s event!

The Meeting of the Minds Dementia conference is the premier conference for persons with dementia, families, friends and professionals. The Alzheimer’s Association and Mayo Clinic invite you to join us for this day of inspiration and information.

Team members from Thomas Landing, Legends at Heritage Place, River Pointe and Twin Town Villa, will be attending sessions at this year’s conference as well as attending our booth in the exhibit hall.  Be sure to stop by and say hello!

If you would like more information on this event or would like to register, simply click on the link: 
http://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?EventID=952142
.

2011 Welcome Home Award Winners

Each year, Welcome Home gives out several awards for excellence in our senior living communities.  Awards for Resident Choice, Employee Choice, Best Community Award, and the North Star Leadership Award were given to communities and individuals who qualified for the awards.

Our teams did such great work in their communities and they need to be honored for doing great things.  All communities really did some amazing things this year, but a few stood out.

The Employee Choice Award is given to the community who scores the highest in employee satisfaction.  Our employee satisfaction surveys are done once per year with our team members.  This year’s award winner, with a score of 90% was River Pointe of Moorhead.

The Resident Choice is the award for the highest resident satisfaction scores among all of the communities.  This year’s totals were really close which shows what a great job all of the communities are doing.

This year’s award went to Potter Ridge with a score of 92%!  This is the 4th time that Potter Ridge has won this award.

The next awards presented were the Best Community Award.  This award goes to the communities that showed excellence in 10 separate categories ranging from overall occupancy, adherence to budgets, resident satisfaction and employee satisfaction survey’s.  Communities must attain a high level in all categories to receive the award.

This year’s recipients included the teams at Potter Ridge Assisted Living (3 time recipient),

Twin Town Villa (3 time recipient),

Orchard Hill (2 time recipient) and,

Excelsior Place (1st time recipient).

Our final award is the North Star Leadership Award.  This award exemplifies those individuals who work in Welcome Home communities for the work that they do with the residents and with their team members.  This award recognizes those team members in our communities who show great leadership qualities.  This award is open to any team member at a property managed by Welcome Home.  Anyone can nominate, from family, to team members, to residents.

This year, we again had fantastic nominees.

Our nominees were (l to r), Blaire Swinarski and Mickie Shutz of Potter Ridge Assisted Living; Judi Durkin and Sharon Humble from Twin Town Villa, and Sherri Schnacki of Thomas Landing.  Dean Bloemke, President of Welcome Home announced the nominations through our YouTube channel.

The 2011 North Star Leadership Award went to Judi Durkin, the Lead Care Manager at Twin Town Villa.

Congratulations to all the recipients of this year’s awards!

Go Red!

Residents and staff at Twin Town Villa Assisted Living pose on the grand staircase.  They wore “red” for Go Red for Women on Friday Feb. 3 2012.

North Star Leadership Award Nominee #3

This week, we are honoring team members who were nominated for our North Star Leadership Award.  We are also submitting those who were nominated to Aging Services Stars Among Us campaign.

As we continue to honor those individuals who were nominated for Welcome Home Management’s North Star Leadership Award, and who were submitted to the Stars Among Us campaign at Aging Services, we come to our third nominee.

Our third nomination and Star Among Us is Sharon.  She is a care provider at Twin Town Villa Senior Living in Breckenridge, Minnesota.  This is her first nomination for the North Star Leadership Award.

Sharon was nominated by a resident of Twin Town Villa.  She writes:

“I nominate Sharon H. for her duties and presence.  She goes way beyond getting her work done and in my eyes, you never see her idle.

She is always friendly and very helpful – always with a smile!”

Inspire - What inspires you to serve older adults? Is there a mentor or fellow caregiver who motivates or helps you? What keeps you going on tough days?

“Their sincere appreciation for whatever you do for them.  The compliments you receive for doing your best when caring for them and assisting however you can at the time.”

The people who help motivate me is the compassionate nurse to learn from in how to care for our residents.”

“What keeps me going is the smiles and greetings as you meeting in the hall and being asked “How are you today?” from the residents.  The fact that they really care about you when you answer is the best.”

Serve - What does a career serving older adults mean to you? What is the most meaningful or rewarding part of your job? The most challenging?

“It means so much to be around people that I can learn as much from, as they have a lifetime of living experience.”
“The most rewarding part is knowing what I do for them on a daily basis makes a difference in their life, even if it just makes them smile or laugh.”

Advocate - What do you advocate for? What do you want public policy makers to know about the work you do?

“I advocate for older adults to be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their health or disability.”

“I want our public policy makers to know that the work I do as a care provider makes their quality of life much better, especially for the resident’s who call our community home!”

Sharon has been doing an outstanding job since she came on board four years ago.  All of us at Twin Town Villa and at Welcome Home congratulate her on her nomination.

For the past three years, Welcome Home has honored an individual that shows leadership  abilities in their community or in the organization with the North Star Leadership Award.  The North Star Leadership Award winner will be announced at Welcome Home’s Annual Winter Conference on February 23rd.  Watch for more details on our live presentation as our conference date approaches.

Roman Bloemke, Director of Operations

North Star Leadership Award nominee #2

As we mentioned earlier this week, we are honoring team members who were nominated for our North Star Leadership Award.  We are also submitting those who were nominated to Aging Services Stars Among Us campaign.

For the past three years, Welcome Home has honored an individual that shows leadership  abilities in their community or in the organization with the North Star Leadership Award.  With Aging Services of Minnesota’s program, we thought it would be a great opportunity to showcase not only our North Star Leadership award winner, but to all of those team members who were nominated throughout our company.

As we continue to honor those individuals who were nominated for Welcome Home Management’s North Star Leadership Award, and who were submitted to the Stars Among Us campaign at Aging Services, we come to our second nominee

Our second nomination and Star Among Us is Judi.  Judi is a shift leader at Twin Town Villa Senior Living in Breckenridge, Minnesota.  This is her second nomination for the North Star Leadership Award.

This year, Judi was nominated by residents, families, and the people she works with on a daily basis.  Last year, one of  Twin Town Villa’s advisory board members wrote,

“I see and hear firsthand about the excellent work that Judy does for the residents. She genuinely cares about the quality of life for the residents here at the Villa.  Judy has a great sense of humor which brightens  my father’s long days.  She is very understanding of his limitations due to his cancer and the medications side effects that he experiences.  She always greets him with a warm and cheerful smile and kind words.  It’s employees like her that make family members feel secure that their loved ones are being properly cared for.”

Inspire - What inspires you to serve older adults? Is there a mentor or fellow caregiver who motivates or helps you? What keeps you going on tough days?

“Knowing that I am helping individuals that are deserving of being taken care of is what inspires me.  It makes me feel good at the end of the day knowing that I helped them.”

My Director, Lisa Lehmann, and my RN, Tanya Ramacher are my mentors.  They are both very proactive when it comes to the cares and services that our residents need each and every day.”

“The resident’s are what keeps me going on the tough days.  Knowing that they appreciate everything that we do for them on a daily basis – it just keeps me going.”

Serve - What does a career serving older adults mean to you? What is the most meaningful or rewarding part of your job? The most challenging?

“Knowing that I am able to give back to the older adults after everything that they have done for us when we were the ones that needed to be taken care of.”

The most meaningful part of my job is getting to see each of the residents every day and seeing their smiles on Monday mornings after the weekend.”

Advocate - What do you advocate for? What do you want public policy makers to know about the work you do?

“I want our public policy makers to understand that giving individuals the opportunities to continue to live on their own, without having to in to the nursing home unless it is absolutely necessary, is extremely important to one’s self-esteem.”

Judi does an outstanding job for Twin Town Villa and Welcome Home Health Care.  She always has a big smile on her face every time I see her.  Congratulations Judi!

The North Star Leadership Award winner will be announced at Welcome Home’s Annual Winter Conference on February 23rd.  Watch for more details on our live presentation as our conference date approaches

Roman Bloemke, Director of Operations

Home for the Holidays

By Todd Corrow, Marketing Associate at Legends at Heritage Place and Lisa Lehmann, Director of Resident Services at Twin Town Villa.

As families gather together during this upcoming Holiday Season, some may face seeing changes in their parents.  Our goal is to assist all families with these difficult decisions.  We have started a support group for all families in which the topics cover how to make the best decisions for everyone involved.  When a family comes to us looking to take that next step, we sit down with all of them and take the time for them to communicate exactly what they are looking for and what concerns they have.  We assist the families with finding the solution that works best for them.

Another area that we emphasize is that even if Mom and Dad come to live with us, it doesn’t have to mean that Mom and Dad can’t host the family get together.  This Thanksgiving we are working with several of our residents to bring their family to the community for their traditional family gathering.  We know this will mean the world to not only the residents, but to all of us here.  We will have an opportunity to visit with the family and all our residents will have the opportunity to share in the joy of family.

We as a staff strive to allow the families to become just that – a family again, with the caregiver role becoming ours.  This way the spouse can again become the husband or wife without the stress of taking care of the other, we want them to regain the smiles and relaxing times that we all cherish.  We want the sons and daughters to be able to bring the grandchildren in and have the smiles brighten up the entire building.  Smiles and laughter truly possess a healing power and create a warm and positive environment.

Coming home for the holiday’s can sometimes be an eye opener when you come home to an elderly parent(s).  Sometimes it is amazing what declines we see this month that we didn’t notice six months ago when we were home last.

Things you might notice or signs that you should keep an eye out for –

•  Your parent seems depressed. Depression is common in seniors who are isolated and alone.
• Dad is reaching for the backs of the furniture while getting around the house, leads us to believe that he is losses his balance more often, making it more difficult to get around.
• You notice frequent bruises, although your parent may try to cover them up. This may be a sign of falling or mobility and balance problems.
• Your parent wears the same clothes over and over again or neglects personal hygiene. This can indicate that doing laundry and bathing is physically challenging.
• Did you notice that mom isn’t wearing any of her favorite blouses?  She is having a hard time buttoning them up.
• Mom seems more confused lately, she maybe having trouble keeping her medications straight.  Mixing up the times and doses can lead to more confusion.
• The house and yard isn’t as clean and tidy as it used to be.
• Your parent forgets things, including doctor’s appointments and when to take medication. This may be due to memory loss.
• You notice strange or inappropriate behavior. For example, your parent may dress inappropriately for the weather. This can be a sign that your parent is experiencing confusion.

So as we gather for the Holidays lets be thankful for the opportunity to come together and create lasting memories.  If you see things that concern you do not fear what the future holds embrace the opportunity to work with a Community which will provide a safe and caring environment where there will be opportunity to create more memories.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

Heart and Soul – LCM Workshop

Today, the heart and soul of the care providers visited Welcome Home for their Fall Workshop.

We covered a variety of topics, but the overall goal was sharing information between all of the communities.  What works, best practices, scheduling ideas, taking inventory, and being a leader in the community.

The overall result was a

Great day of discussion – Community Life Coordinator’s Fall Workshop

What an amazing day filled with ideas and great discussion among a bunch of talented people!

Today, we hosted our Community Life Coordinator’s and the Director’s of Resident Services from our communities.  Quite honestly,