Leading the Way in Comfort & Care

"Leading the Way in Comfort and Care" is the name of our Capital Campaign to renovate the Apostles Center for Care and Westvue Personal Care into four small person-centered households for nursing and memory support care.  The key word is household.  Traditional nursing homes are institutional in appearance and more importantly, in the activities of daily living.  Homestead Village has been implementing its person centered approach for the past four years.  In fact, May 2 is the four year anniversary of our made-to-order breakfasts.  Lunch and dinner followed in August, 2007.



Radcliffe House Dining Room should open May 1!

 The renovation offers three distinct improvements in the Apostles Center for Care and our memory support personal care.  

First, the dining improvements that were initiated in 2007 will now be supported with outstanding kitchen and dining room facilities that are just like home. 

Second, the "institution" is being divided into houses of 12 to 20 residents with their own living room, dining room, kitchen and bedroom hallways.  Each bedroom will have its own full bath.  The four houses have been named for four generous benefactors who helped to make the campaign a success.  Fickes House and Radcliffe House are under renovation currently and will each serve 18-20 residents.  Young House and Gelhard House are both memory-support households for 12-14 residents.  Young House is part of the nursing home.  Gelhard house is a personal care residence.

Finally, the improved environment and facilities will allow our person-centered training and approach to flourish.  What does that mean?  As we learn to live and work in households, each resident's individual choices with respect to daily activities such as waking, dining, bathing and bedtime will be honored to the best of our ability.  Our ability will constantly improve as we take advantage of the benefits of the renovation and achieve greater levels of teamwork. 

So far approximately 120 Homestead Village stakeholders have contributed $3.1 million toward our ultimate goal of $4 million.  All of the money contributed will be used to greatly improve the quality of life of our residents by funding the improvements described above.  The plan is to complete the campaign in 2011, Homestead Village's 25th anniversary year.  With just eight months remaining, our work is cut out for us; but we have wonderful stakeholders.  We greatly appreciated your support of the campaign. 

If all of the Homestead Village stakeholders who have not yet given make a five year pledge to give, the average gift would only need to $900 per year to successfully complete the campaign!  Please consider giving to the campaign today!

New Apartments ready for sales in April.

This is what we have been waiting for!  62 apartments, underground parking, a 4500 square foot multi-purpose room and new, expanded dining rooms.  Combined with the renovated nursing households, Homestead Village will be truly state of the art in its accomodations and quality of life!

Initial sales will begin with current villa, cottage and apartment residents and then we will begin offering apartments to our priority list.  More information will follow soon.

The Homestead Village Blog has arrived!

Earlier today, I reposted the March Happenings and Herald article introducting the position of TLC - Team Lead Caregiver.  With that post, the new Homestead Village blog has begun. 

It is here that all From the President posts appearing in Homestead Village publications will originate and simultaneously appear on the Homestead Village Facebook page:  www.facebook.com/homesteadvillage.org.  Eventually the blog may include other thoughts from the leadership of Homestead Village. 

What is a TLC?

When looking for a name for the most important new position we have ever created in the Apostles Center of Care, we searched for a long time.  This new position would be the leader of each household, with the goal and expectation to ensure quality care, a neat and clean environment, life enriching activities as well as active exercise through restorative therapy.



Dawn Miller



This new leader will accomplish these lofty goals through hiring, training and orienting all of the household staff, implementing a self-scheduling system that ensures appropriate staffing at all times and modeling the desired outcomes.  Always in the past these duties were the responsibility of the RN Charge Nurse; but due to pressing medical needs, required paperwork, communications with family members, physicians, and other daily challenges, the charge nurse could rarely focus attention on these details.  The difference is a proactive versus a reactive approach to quality!



What should we call this new position and who should we select to fill it?  Dr. Bill Thomas the innovative and famous physician who developed the small house nursing home known as Green Houses, the standard of excellence in long-term care, actually made up a fictitious name for his caregivers.  He named them Shahbaz, which in the Farsi language means “royal falcon.”  Titles are important.  They immediately convey the significance of the position.  Dr. Thomas wanted to so dramatically change the perception of nursing home care that he chose to create a whole new image for the caregiver.







Lynn Lugo



An image change to go along with improved quality is a very good idea.  At Homestead Village we no longer call our most important staff members nursing assistants, CNAs (Certified Nursing Assistant), or nurse’s aides.  We call them “Caregivers.”  To lead the households and create the best possible teamwork, our new leadership position has been named TLC which stands for Team Lead Caregiver.  We like it because the initials’ better known meaning - tender loving care.  It is our hope that the TLC will succeed in fulfilling that kind of experience for each of our residents. TLCs have been selected to lead Fickes House and Radcliffe House.  Both are veteran caregivers.  Lynn Lugo, Fickes house TLC, has worked at Homestead Village for over 18 years and most recently was our Restorative Caregiver, specializing in restorative therapy.  Dawn Miller has worked at Homestead Village for over three years as a caregiver and exudes a level of enthusiasm and concern for quality care that is vital.  Both Lynn and Dawn have been in training for the position since the beginning of 2011 and are anxious to see the renovations complete and their houses take shape.  Their goal is the best nursing care Homestead Village has ever provided!  I am confident that they will succeed.