Chaparral House

Change is always just around the corner! As we watch robots dance to the 1962 Motown classic, Do You Love Me, it is easy to see how the past and the future can align to create something beautiful. Some of our residents remember doing the mashed potato and the twist when they were young adults and robots were science fiction. The world changes so much during a lifetime, it is important to find those moments to dance. Happy New Years!

The holiday spirit is bright at Chaparral House with Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa celebrations happening back to back this year! Our residents have been enjoying the lovely holiday cards that arrived from Love For Our Elders and the Christmas tree from Delancey Street Foundation . The decorations are all up, and we are ready to enjoy some Christmas carols this week. Check out these fun new animated videos for Chuck Berry’s Run Run Rudolph and Ella Fitzgerald’s Frosty the Snowman. These classic carols are now more than 60 years old, and the nostalgia they bring for our residents is priceless. #ChaparralHouse #Christmas2020

This word cloud was generated by Great Place to Work during the analysis of our annual anonymous employee survey for 2020.

Today FORTUNE magazine announced that Chaparral House is on its Best Workplaces for Aging Services in the United States list for the third consecutive year! The list is the result of an anonymous employee survey conducted by Great Place to Work which evaluates how employees feel about leadership, decision making, and opportunity in their workplace. We are thankful for the resiliency and dedication that our team has demonstrated this year while protecting our elders from COVID-19. They have truly risen to the occasion and it is especially nice to learn that our staff feels supported during this exceptional year. #BestWorkplaces #ChaparralHouse

2020 has been a year for creative solutions. Facetime, Skype, and Zoom visits at Chaparral House have been non-stop since March, as loved ones seek to stay connected in safe ways. Over the summer, families started having socially distanced in person visits using our abundant outdoor space. More recently, small socially-distanced group activities have returned as well. These adaptations have helped us address the holistic health of our residents while listening to their needs and feedback. We have been successful at protecting our elders from Covid-19, with no residents or staff having tested positive. This story from NPR comes with a lovely guide for supporting our elders while keeping their unique needs and wants in mind. After all, it’s often the little things that can make a big difference in quality of life!

Giving Tuesday is about hope for the future and belief in the generosity of our communities. Today we are reaching out to ask for help funding our Horticultural Therapy Project so that our elders can garden again. We plan to build a wheelchair accessible courtyard garden complete with elevated raised beds that will benefit the residents of Chaparral House for years to come. Take a moment today to visit our project page and please share it with your social network as an act of kindness for #GivingTuesday. #ChaparralHouse

#postcardsofkindness

We love to laugh at Chaparral House! Our Activities Staff is fantastic at clowning around to get the residents to smile and many of our residents have a few good jokes to share too! Stand-up comedy has seen a resurgence in the past few years, and more elders are coming on the scene with a humorous take on aging. Jane Stone is a San Francisco Bay Area native who started doing stand-up at 70 years old. Check out this interview with her and be sure to click the link at the bottom of the article to watch Jane’s 5 minute comedy set on Youtube. https://seniorplanet.org//10/07/meet-the-member-jane-stone/

It is important to remember that we are all in this together. Chaparral House is now participating in Postcards of Kindness, an international campaign that encourages people to send mail to elders in residential care facilities. By sending us a postcard, you can make a positive impact and remind our elders that they are still a part of a larger community that cares. Getting mail brightens our day and we will post the cards for everyone to enjoy! By sending postcards you are also supporting the USPS in their time of need. #PostcardsOfKindness #USPS #savetheusps #eldercare

From our Fall newsletter. If you'd like to get on our mailing list for our quarterly newsletter, please email your request with your mailing address to [email protected] Challenges of the New Normal As you can imagine, the COVID19 pandemic has altered many jobs and procedures at Chaparral House.... Although Chaparral has always had exemplary sanitation and infection control practices; nursing, housekeeping and kitchen staff all report the necessity to have hyper awareness of these issues now, with more time and supplies needed to maintain the increased standards necessary. As group activities are not allowed yet at the time of this writing and families are not allowed in-building visits, activities staff is focusing on one-on-one activities with residents and spend a lot of time coordinating phone and video calls with residents and their families. Residents miss their families and volunteers (including our pet visitors). KJ Page, our Administrator, cites a major change being many more hours spent on more conference calls and webinars from CDC, CMS, CDPH, state county and city public health as well as physicians, social services and activity professionals. Chuck Cole, our Chief Finance Officer, reports that very significant amounts of time must now be spent on tracking HR issues, COVID19 financial costs and changes in government programs under the various provisions of the CARES Act, among many other things. They also both stressed the increased time in organizing and the increased costs of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) and also the regular COVID19 testing for staff and residents. But KJ concluded with, Our goal is to keep our residents and staff safe during this time of great change and deadly pandemic. Chaparral House is a non-profit skilled nursing facility. Please visit our website to make a tax-deductible donation: www.chaparralhouse.com.

Big thanks to the Hu Family for their generous support! Recently Cheney Hu accepted the Polaris Generosity Award for the family in honor of their parents, Teh-Wei and Tien-Hwa Hu from KJ Page, Chaparral Administrator.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a tenacious advocate for equal rights. She was a member of the Silent Generation whose words will echo through time. At Chaparral House we have the privilege of caring for people who were born in the 1920’s and 30’s. Many were pivotal players in the ongoing fight for equality. We believe in celebrating the lives of elders, elevating their voices, and paying respect to their contributions. As we mourn this loss as a society, let us remember her words and the art she inspired.

Staying active is beneficial for people of all ages. But with wildfires compromising air quality all over the west coast, it can be unsafe for people with sensitive respiratory systems to take a walk outside. Thankfully, there are now many free virtual walking trails online. You can be transported to far away places and walk in place through beautiful trails while listening to the sounds of nature. Simply click the links in the article below to watch on your iPad, computer, or TV and get moving! Pro tip: you can adjust the pace of the video in Youtube under settings if you want go faster or slower.

At 82 years old, Jane Fonda continues to stand up for her beliefs with acts of civil disobedience. She recently released a guidebook to mobilize climate change activists, acknowledging that both the wildfire crisis and the pandemic are connected to environmental devastation. Jane Fonda has always been a fearless advocate, and age has only deepened her commitment to creating a better world. We believe that elders need to be a part of the conversation when planning for social change. They have lived through the civil rights movement, the LGBT rights movement, wars, and political unrest. We need to listen to their perspectives and heed their advice. Which elders do you turn to for guidance?

When a community rallies around it’s elders, the results are heartwarming. A small town in Ireland responded to the coronavirus pandemic by supporting their elders to stay at home, with each person doing their part to make sure everyone’s needs were met. They even created a radio show for information and entertainment! What could this look like in the Bay Area? How can we be more supportive to elders who are aging in place right now?

Health is a basic human right. Yet getting access to the individualized care we need can be challenging in the US. Fortunately, geriatric medicine is moving towards a person-centered care model. Chaparral House has been a proponent of this philosophy since we were founded in 1975. While this shift can be difficult for some larger facilities to imagine, it has become intuitive for us over time. Through sharing our story in the community, we hope to help others imagine the possibilities for eldercare. Our Administrator, KJ Page, is an eloquent advocate for our model of care. The words she spoke at the American Health Care Association Conference in 2017 continue to ring true today. https://youtu.be/wEGN3xPH1gw

Listen to the soothing sounds of the harp played by one of our fabulous volunteers. In order to keep everyone safe during the Covid-19 pandemic, notice how the harpist wears a surgical mask, maintains a 6 foot distance, and is playing outdoors in the courtyard. These creative solutions allow our residents to engage in one of the most popular activities - listening to live music.

We have dreamed of a cure for Alzheimer’s disease for many years. The scientific community recently came one step closer by developing a blood test that can detect this disease 20 years before the onset of symptoms. Chaparral House has seen a rise in Alzheimer’s during our many years of service and we developed our Memory Care program to integrate innovative treatments to improve quality of life for our elders. Yet we still cannot prevent the progression of the disease and the losses it brings. One day we hope that Alzheimer’s will be both preventable and curable.