%20(1).png)
Home Care Marketing & Sales Mastery by Approved Senior Network®
Dawn Fiala, Lisa Marsolais, Annette Ziegler, and Valerie VanBooven RN BSN provide insight into home care marketing strategies. They cover in-person, in-field sales and online marketing every other week. These podcast episodes are part of the Home Care Marketing Mastermind, sponsored by Approved Senior Network®. Find more information at https://ASNHomeCareMarketing.com
Home Care Marketing & Sales Mastery by Approved Senior Network®
Home Care Marketing: How Home Care Agencies Can Collaborate with the Alzheimer's Association
When a loved one receives an Alzheimer's diagnosis, families often feel overwhelmed and uncertain where to turn. For home care agencies serving these families, having the right resources and training can make all the difference in providing compassionate, effective care. That's where the Alzheimer's Association comes in.
In this enlightening conversation with Claire Corwin, Program Director of the Alzheimer's Association, we uncover the wealth of free resources available to both home care agencies and the families they serve. Claire, whose journey began while caring for her own grandmother, shares her expertise on everything from specialized dementia training programs to emotional support services.
"We want to make sure we're maximizing quality care and support for people living with dementia," Claire explains, highlighting the Association's mission to accelerate research while supporting those affected today. Home care agencies can access free educational programs covering critical topics like effective communication strategies, managing challenging behaviors, navigating end-of-life care, and understanding the diagnostic process. The "Essentials" certification program offers professional credentials for caregivers who want to specialize in dementia care.
Perhaps most valuable is learning how these resources can be integrated into your agency operations. The 24/7 helpline (1-800-272-3900) provides not only support for families but also guidance for professional caregivers facing difficult situations. Community engagement opportunities like the Walk to End Alzheimer's help agencies build relationships while demonstrating their commitment to quality dementia care.
Whether you're looking to enhance your caregivers' skills, provide emotional support for your staff, or connect clients with valuable community resources, this episode outlines concrete steps to establish a productive partnership with your local Alzheimer's Association chapter. By leveraging these connections, you'll not only improve the quality of care you provide but also position your agency as a specialized resource for families navigating the dementia journey.
Reach out to your local Alzheimer's Association chapter today to explore how they can help strengthen your dementia care services while supporting the families who need you most.
Continuum Mastery Circle Intro
Visit our website at https://asnhomecaremarketing.com
Get Your 11 Free Home Care Marketing Guides: https://bit.ly/homecarerev
Welcome everybody. It's so nice to have you. We have special guest Claire Corwin here today from the Alzheimer's Association. She's going to teach us a lot about what they do and how you can work with them, help you with some training, some really good information. Again, I'm Dawn Fiella. I have been with the ProSenior Network for about three years. I have a very long background in home care. I like to say I've been in the trenches of home care, because that's how it feels sometimes, right, I've done everything from sales to recruiting, retention, operations manager, and so I understand your day-to-day. I love the mission that you're on and thank you for being here today, annette.
Speaker 2:Okay, hi everybody. I'm Annette Ziegler. I have been with ASN for a year and I teach the home care sales training classes. I too, I've had a lot of experience in home care 20 plus years in CCRC, then home care agency so I love doing what I do teaching everybody how to get those private pay referrals and be successful in their marketing. And I'm really glad, claire, that you're here because I think it's going to be very informative. When I was in home care, my agency worked very closely with the Alzheimer's Association and I think a lot of people do not realize how much that you can do to help the training and there's so many avenues that you guys can help the agencies with. Welcome.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you, I'm excited to talk about it with.
Speaker 4:Welcome, thank you. Thank you, I'm excited to talk about it. And, valerie, am I unmuted? Yes, I am.
Speaker 4:I'm Valerie Van Boeven. I'm a registered nurse and the co-owner of Approved Senior Network, and I'm glad to be here today. Thank you, claire, for speaking to us and educating us, and we're looking forward to it. Housekeeping I'll keep going. Okay, housekeeping is lines muted unless you're speaking, please, if you know that you're. If you're unmuted, we can hear everything that's going on in your life. Share stories, experiences, tips, ask questions, make recommendations and tell us what you want to really do. Take your recommendations seriously and try to address any subject matter that you might want to hear. Yeah, next slide, go ahead. You want to do the agenda? Yeah, I'll do it.
Speaker 1:Okay. So today, as I said, the special guest, claire Corwin, is here. She's the program director of the Alzheimer's Association in Rochester. Did I get that right? Yay, okay. Today we're going to talk about resources for home care agencies and families, education and training opportunities for your caregivers, collaborating with your local Alzheimer's Association, increasing your community outreach and engagement. We'll have some time for some Q&A and then Annette is going to go over the leave behinds for June, july, august Also.
Speaker 1:Notice your chat. It's lighting up here in the chat feature. Go ahead and enter any questions you might have in the chat, and, should we go ahead and do the leave behind thing quickly, if you guys are interested in winning a free month of leave-behinds for I think we're going to probably do August this time we will create those for you If you say yes in the chat. This way, everyone will find the chat and we will get those created for you with your logo, your contact information, your colors. You have to promise, though, that you're going to send pictures of what you did with the leave-behinds for the month that you get. So go ahead and use that chat feature. You can type yes anytime. Annette will keep track and we will draw a name after the meeting.
Speaker 1:All right, let's get going. So again, this is Claire. Here is her experience. She comes with a background. You can see it all her program director responsibilities, her personal connection. She had a personal experience caring for her grandmother. I don't know. If you want to talk about that a little bit too. That would be great, claire, to tell us what led you into this role and kind of your day-to-day and how it might relate to what the health care owners and workers do.
Speaker 3:Oh boy, I hope we have time. But I've always known that I wanted to be a social worker when I have two younger sisters, and when I was about 12, my mom sat us all down and she said you're going to be a social worker. She looked at my other sister. She said you're going to be a nurse, and the other one, you're going to be a physical therapist just based on our personalities, and she was absolutely correct. So we have a full care team in our home, oh my goodness. And it worked out really well because we cared for my grandmother and we were able to gain a lot of experience from that. We were able to be helped by a home care agency actually to come in. Both my parents worked full time Watching them juggle. That is what led me to my career, and I've been with the association my entire professional life.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's wonderful Making a difference. Claire's work as a program director of the Alzheimer's Association. Can you briefly describe your role as a program director in your position right now, like your day-to-day, and what that looks like?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, yeah. In your position right now, like your day-to-day and what that looks like oh gosh, yeah. So being a program director at the association it's I like to say that I wear many hats. Across my work across New York state I've held pretty much every programmatic role that we offer. So early stage social engagement, which is where we have the folks who are living with dementia find spaces to engage without any judgment.
Speaker 3:I've done care consultations, which is our version of non-clinical counseling for people. I've provided lots of educational trainings to long-term care facilities and caregivers alike, to home care agencies, and have a really strong background in community connections. As a program director, I oversee all of that and my role is to make really strategic community connections, to find the folks who are providing the services, to connect with them, to bring them into everything that we do, but also have that reciprocal partnership. Partnering with us means that you get the benefits of what we offer, but also we get to put out what everyone else does. So making it, making the relationships. I love being a program director because I get to do whatever I want in that regard.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful and that's a powerful thing too, to have those partnerships across the community. What is the mission of the Alzheimer's Association and how does it support people living with Alzheimer's or other dementias?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, it's a long one, but our mission is really to, in theory, end Alzheimer's disease and all other dementias. Our goal is to put ourselves out of work. We are the largest funder of research in the world largest private funder so we make sure that we're accelerating research, that we're accelerating global awareness, that we're accelerating early detection and risk reduction for folks. That's a big part of our mission and really a lot of what we do is maximizing the quality care and support that people receive who are living with dementia and who are care partners and who are community members and people who just want to do the right thing.
Speaker 1:Great, and what kind of educational resources do you have for family caregivers? So I'm at home. Like you, you had your grandma and your family. Your parents are working full time and they're overwhelmed, and I'm sure that you have lots of resources for that. Educational resources, and what does that look like? Do they come in for meetings, are they? Do you have some kind of online training? How does all of that work for those? Cause? This helps us too, right? We're home care agencies and we have clients that have Alzheimer's, and so it would help us to know those things so we can send them out. And do you ever get to a place where you're doing this and providing support and they're feeling stretched, and maybe you do send them some home care companies or resources? How does that? What does that look like?
Speaker 3:Yes to all of the above. So we will come in for meetings, we will do a virtual training for folks, we will sit down with caregivers and families, we'll go to a library and just offer a community class. We try to be as out there as possible through every avenue, but the educational resources for family caregivers are really what I like best about our work, because it's from start to finish. It is understanding Alzheimer's and dementia. That's usually where I start people and we dive into the specifics of what causes Alzheimer's. What types of dementia are out there, advocate for a diagnosis for my loved one.
Speaker 3:How might I consider treatment? How might I think about stepping into my community and asking others for help? And then it moves on to effective communication strategies. Right, how do I talk to someone with dementia? I think it's an interesting phenomenon, we'll say, in society, where we don't understand how to talk to someone who has Alzheimer's. We think collectively that it's like talking to a child and if you're 80 years old and I start talking to you like this it's so good to see you, you're going to hit me.
Speaker 1:You're not going to like me.
Speaker 3:I need to come at you with respect and dignity and remind myself that you are a person deserving of all of those things and who has lived more life than I have. So that class really dives into not only the ways that we communicate and how we need to bring dignity and respect to the table, but then strategies for each stage of the disease. So in the early stages, how do I set my person up for success? In the late stages, how do I connect with them when they're no longer able to express verbally what they want? We do a lot with behaviors, decoding and figuring out, maybe, why someone is presenting a certain behavior. How do I nip that suspicion in the bud? How do I make sure that someone, if they're getting physically agitated, how do I make sure that doesn't rise to aggression? So tons of different programming for support for folks. And if anyone ever wants to join, they are more than welcome. They're always free.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful that they can be provided for free, because I know the family members are really at their wit's end and don't know where to turn, and if it were a cost basis kind of thing that could really alleviate some wouldn't be able to come, so that's awesome. Are there support groups for caregivers, and how do they join?
Speaker 3:There are absolutely support groups for caregivers. There's all different types. They are in person and virtually hosted. So one of the things that I always tell people is try it once. If you don't like the idea of a caregiver support group, you never have to go again. But it's not just sitting in a circle and saying, hi, my name is Claire and I'm a caregiver. It's so much more than that. So I tell people, go once, call in once, zoom in once, try it, listen. If you don't like it, I will not come find you. It's okay, it's not for everybody, but we'd be surprised how many people it really is for. So people can call their local chapter. They can call our helpline number, which will be in a couple of slides and I can put that in the chat as well, and they can also visit our website. We have a really interesting geo-based, like location services based website. It's at alzorg slash, crf and you can find services via zip code.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's great. And what types of emotional or mental health support are available to families coping with a dementia diagnosis?
Speaker 3:So one of my favorite things that we offer it's called a care consultation and it's provided either by our 1-800 number, which is staffed by master's level clinicians like myself, or they have the option to, in some chapter areas, to meet with an association staff person in person to get what we call this care consultation. So we want to make sure that we're helping people, answer the questions, we're being that emotional shoulder for them, we're guiding them through some of the more complex motions that come along with this. So that's a really big one and I would say, in that same vein, support groups serve that purpose as well. Right, it's not always just meeting with someone from the association, it's meeting with someone who's in the thick of it. Right now.
Speaker 3:My grandma passed before COVID had ever happened, and I know she'll be okay with me saying that I'm so grateful that she passed before it, because this world is completely different. While it's helpful to get my perspective on caregiving, it's even more helpful to get someone else's perspective who's living in this admittedly very different world, right? So those two things really play off of one another.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I imagine the support groups are very helpful to see and be sitting in the same room, or even virtually, with someone who's going through the same thing, who really understands what that feels like and emotionally what they're going through. The same thing, who really understands what that feels like and emotionally what they're going through Exactly. That's probably very valuable. Supporterships with home care agencies how can a home care agency collaborate with the Alzheimer's Association?
Speaker 3:There are so many ways. The first thing that we always want to tell people is let us just come in and tell you about what we offer. You can't partner with us and I can't partner with you if I don't know the ins and outs of what you do. So, at the very least, I always encourage any home care agency really anyone who's interested in getting involved with us to give us a call. Have us come in, do a quick lunch and learn, or a whole hour presentation and let people ask questions. It's up to you and how much time you have, of course. Hour presentation and let people ask questions. It's up to you and how much time you have, of course, but see what works.
Speaker 3:A lot of what we do is community-based right. I want people to be out. I want people to see the different organizations and partners that we have and how they can be best served. So I would encourage folks to call their local chapter, see how they can get involved, whether it's a wellness fair or coming to one of our events and being able to be present in the community. That's a really huge way, I think, for our constituents to say oh okay, I know Claire, I've done care consultations with her, and if she trusts them, I trust them right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Annette, would you want to speak to how you collaborated with the Alzheimer's Association there in Rochester?
Speaker 2:Sure. So one thing that I did I worked for 13 years in a CCRC and I dealt with a lot of the families coming in, moving their families into memory care. So I ended up becoming a support facilitator for the Alzheimer's Association. I did that for eight years. That's a volunteer position, but I loved it. And I did it for eight years. That's a volunteer position, but I loved it and I did it. When I moved into working at home care, I also did that. It was a volunteer position and I did it once a month and I was a support facilitator.
Speaker 2:My meeting was at a memory care in the community and it was families. Some of the family members that lived their mom or dad lived in the memory care. But there were also people that came from the area to these meetings and they were small but just like Claire said. So before COVID, that's when I was really doing it every month, and then COVID hit and then everything went virtual. All the in-person meetings ended. So then after COVID, it slowly got back to normal I guess if we can call it normal. But I started doing the in-person support groups again and it's just so valuable. It's really a place where people just talk to each other and give ideas that work for them. It's family members, spouses, anybody can be there, and there was always somebody from the Alzheimer's Association that was with me. But I have to say, if anybody's looking for a volunteer position, I loved that. I just really loved doing that.
Speaker 2:As an agency, we would use the Alzheimer's Association to do training. We had in-service trainings for our caregivers, so we would have different topics of either dementia behaviors Claire in a little bit is going to go over all the different topics that she can do speaking engagements for but we used to use them for our in-services and training for our caregivers. We also participated in the Alzheimer's walk every year. So, yeah, and their office was right down the street from my the home care agency and I would pop in there and get brochures. They have tons of brochures that we would give to our different family members. You have a brochure, I think, claire, on everything, like it's probably what? Three different brochures, yeah, and they're free. So I highly recommend collaborating with them.
Speaker 1:That's great and they're free, so I highly recommend collaborating with them. That's great. And, claire, are there training programs or certification opportunities that help home care aides work more effectively with dementia clients? So Annette is saying she did an in-service where you guys came in and did either behavior or your other topics. Does that certify those caregivers in that topic? Or do you have some certifications that they could send their caregivers through topic? Or if you have some certifications that they could send their caregivers through, making them maybe dementia certified or some kind of certificate, because from the home care angle, that helps us with people with dementia. It helps us with those families if we have caregivers that have some sort of certification. Or is it more kind of an in-service? Come in and everybody learns how to handle behavior. What does that look like?
Speaker 3:That's a really good question. So it's actually both the one that would be certifying someone. It's called Essentials and it's actually an online-based program. So obviously we have people on different shifts and on different schedules and different things going on in life, so it's a lot easier to use for folks. But that would certify an employee essentially in dementia care best practices, if you will. Is there a cost for that? There is. So to the agency, there is a cost per person. Off the top of my head I don't remember what it is.
Speaker 3:It's, I think, a very good value for the information that we're getting, especially if someone is really new to the whole side of dementia caregiving. Maybe they have a wonderful heart and they're a great person. We just got to get them that knowledge, that background, and really hone that skill. I've gone through it. I've given the training. I think it's very helpful, especially when you have someone who's really willing to learn and who this type of work resonates with.
Speaker 3:The other option that we offer is coming in and doing those programs like understanding dementia-related behaviors. We can run through and sit with the staff and really brainstorm certain things to make sure that they feel comfortable understanding dementia-related behaviors, intervening, empowering families with that same education A lot of the time. It's almost. I almost prefer sometimes going through home care agencies and imparting this information, because you all see those people every single day. You see the family you're building rapport. I am not, so sometimes it's more valuable to me to come in and talk to the staff and let them disseminate that information, to use their rapport, to improve someone's caregiving toolkit, if you will, rather than me, this person who they've never met, come in and say, oh, you're doing this and this wrong. Let this caregiver who they trust and have led into their home kind of help a little bit. So it's two sides. It's nice to have that certification and it's nice to have that informal connection as well.
Speaker 1:Sure, and for the certification. Can you spell that what that's called, did you say?
Speaker 3:essential Essentials. It's really. It's cute how they did it, but it's hard when I'm speaking it, so I'll type it in the chat here.
Speaker 1:Okay, there it is, and is there a link that you could or do we have? Maybe we have a link later on in the slides. I know Annette put these together, I don't think.
Speaker 2:I don't know if we have that link, claire, do we? I don't think so. I think we have the. I can't remember.
Speaker 1:Okay, but we can get that for everyone. And the pricing Is it different per state or is it all the same? Do you know?
Speaker 1:I believe it's called Blanket. Okay, oh, it looks like Matthew Hardy put it here in a link here. All right, matthew, thank you, matt. Okay, so that's great. So we can do both levels. We can have them come in and, from what I've understood with my caregivers, most of them really loved getting trained. They felt good about being trained. They felt like you were putting something into them, that you valued them and that you were training them. So in-service, or having them get online and be certified I have 10, 15 caregivers that have that certification could do really well for your business too, and just treat your clients, the ones that are struggling with this and the family members. This is all really great information, and so what Alzheimer's resources or tools can agencies incorporate into their care plans when they're putting their care plans together?
Speaker 3:So I would definitely consider training and having that essential certification, making sure that we feel comfortable with the amount of staff who have gone through or have that level of information. But the other thing that I think is really interesting when we're talking about care planning is bringing us in to fill the gap. Sometimes you guys are busy. You don't have time to provide a care, consultation and always be that emotional support for somebody. But that's my whole job, right? So we have a referral sheet that I always tell people. If you want to talk about it, I'll give you a call, otherwise don't worry about it.
Speaker 3:But the one thing that I think is really helpful from an agency perspective when we're thinking about everything that people need to do is again that community resource finder, and I'll put the link in the chat ALCorg, slash, crf, and that is that zip code based.
Speaker 3:It's like a caregiver centric search engine. It's really interesting because it's everything that you could think of that you would need. So I would really suggest that an agency use that. It's a self-powered listing, so you have to list yourself. There's no database through which I go in and say, oh okay, this agency isn't on there, let me add them in. So whenever I meet with somebody new, that's my first thing I say you should really put yourself on this, because I give this to every single one of my caregivers that I meet, so that's a big one. But when we're talking about care planning making sure, truly, that if someone needs us, that we're utilizing the services that are available, they're free for everyone. So even if it's just putting in our helpline number as a little magnet, your local office will send that to you to make sure that you have a stack as well.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's such great information. Okay, Education and training. So please explain more about the free education and training that's available. So these are your topics, so can you just give us a one-liner of what the training is for each one? You know what is, I know dementia behaviors, but what specifically? If you were to like summarize each one, what would that be like?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, okay. So dementia is our high level view of all things dementia related. Right, it's that cause, that underlying medical condition that is causing these behaviors Senility is not a real thing. So when we say, oh, aunt Sally is just a little bit senile, that's not right and we're excusing what is an underlying medical condition. So that is a very high-level view of all the different types of dementia and what treatments may or may not be available.
Speaker 3:Behaviors is what we talked about. It's looking deeply into why that person may be exhibiting this behavior and what I can do as a caregiver to or a care partner or community member, whomever. It is what I can do to make that person feel more comfortable so that behavior is mitigated. To make that person feel more comfortable so that behavior is mitigated. End of life is a really tough one to get folks to, but every single time it is really helpful and they walk away feeling so much more prepared. So we walk through all of the different services that are available to folks. What is palliative care? What is hospice? When should I consider this? How do I know that the time is right? Who do I ask? So one of the things that we do is make sure that people have that basic information and that they're comfortable much earlier on saying the word hospice, using the term palliative care. It's something that we very much shy away from and I want people to think about this. Right, I want them to be prepared. The later stages happen very quickly, so I want people to know what to do. I don't want you to wait. Use your time to be a family member, not a nurse and it's great if you are a nurse but I want you to have this time. That's end of life.
Speaker 3:Communication is those effective communication strategies. Right, it's tone of voice, it's watching your body language, your eye contact, making sure that you're addressing someone respectfully in the middle stages, making sure that you're not filling things in for somebody, that you're treating them with respect, continuing to engage them in the conversation. It's all of those things and how to successfully communicate throughout each stage of the disease. Right, it's progressive, so things will change, but I want to give you the tools to A know what to expect and, b know how to respond. And then diagnosis of a person is really. We call it the 10 warning signs of dementia, but it's really more about looking at those signs and saying, okay, where do I go from here? It's not something that's normal. It's not normal aging. No, memory loss is normal aging. So how do I get a diagnosis? Can I rule everything else out? What is the right doctor to go to? What tests are they doing? What things are they looking for? So we really try to get people from start to finish with the education.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful, and these are the ones where you would come in and do the in-service. These are the topics. Perfect, those are all, really, and there's quite a bit of them. You could do two a year with your caregivers and it'd take a while to get through them all and then just rotate. That's a really good list of topics. I love that. Community outreach programs Can you talk about your 24-7 helpline and how home care providers can share this with?
Speaker 3:families 24-7 helpline, mostly because I've had people call me at 3 am and I truly I was very worried. It turned out to not be anything too serious, but it did wake me up out of a very deep sleep. So I prefer that people call our 24-7 helpline because someone else is awake and ready to take your call and ready to walk you through that question. That you woke up in the middle of the night and said I wonder if this is true or I wonder if this is the best thing I could be doing. It's wonderful for emotional support. If mom is having a really tough time and she's exhibiting some tough behaviors, you can call them and troubleshoot with them. Right. They can give you different approaches to behavioral issues. They can give you different strategies as a professional to intervene in certain situations and to mitigate behaviors, to make ourselves better caregivers personally, professionally. So I always encourage home care providers to not only share this with families so that the family has an outlet if they need to just vent right.
Speaker 3:This is not something that is always the most fun experience. There's certainly joys that we can find, but it's a tough thing to go through. That's anticipatory grief from start to finish. So I always encourage them to use this as an outlet for emotions and to find support. But also home care employees, people who are providing that direct care you guys have a tough job. I also want them to use this for support, right? It's not always the easiest thing to leave a shift and just shut it all down and go back to my day-to-day life. It's really hard. You see, a lot of stuff that is difficult. So one of the things that I encourage folks to do is, without using any personal identifying information, call in and say, hey, this is what I'm experiencing and it's really hard on me, or I'm really struggling with X, y and Z. What do you suggest? So it's a personal and professional resource.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hadn't thought about it for the caregivers, but that's a really great idea and they do get very emotionally involved with some of their clients. But there's, there should be a limit. But with someone with Alzheimer's, for sure, you know, it's probably very difficult to do that for eight hours and then just okay, I'm going to just leave. That's not going to happen. They're going to still feel it and own it and worry and wonder about them when they're not there. So I never thought about the helpline for the caregivers. That's awesome. Are there any community-based programs or events that the Alzheimer's Association hosts that home care agencies should know about?
Speaker 3:Goodness gracious, yes, we do quite a bit in community. We want to be that community-facing organization. When someone says Alzheimer's or dementia, I want them to think of us, as well as their neurologist or their PCP, as their kind of first step to get that information. So we try really hard to be community-based across the nation. So one of the things that we offer Annette touched on it a little bit is our Walk to End Alzheimer's.
Speaker 3:That's always a huge event. It's in so many different regions, so many different communities. Sometimes they're huge, sometimes they're small, but they're always impactful. So I would encourage agencies even to just make a team right. You can wear matching t-shirts with the logo and people see you out there. You can have an informational table. You, you out there. You can have an informational table, you can sponsor. If you so choose, you can attend what we call a community forum.
Speaker 3:So these are really interesting. They are places for the community to say, hey, I don't know much about this, can you tell me? And also, this is what the community needs. I love working here because we are open to changing things for what our community needs. I live in Buffalo but I work in Rochester and they're two wildly different places with wildly different needs, so that's always helpful. Agencies are always more than welcome to attend those. Any education programs that we have, I would encourage even if you want to reach out to your local chapter to offer a presentation in partnership. We have two different spheres of influence. If we bring those together, that's pretty big for both of us. So anything like that, I would suggest reaching out.
Speaker 1:That's great and we at my company too, we used to do the walk to end Alzheimer's and we would invite our referral sources to walk with us. So the social workers at the skilled nursing facilities, people working in memory care, we would invite them to come and be on our team. It was a pretty powerful thing. It really changed our relationship with them as well. That's wonderful. So how do I think this is the one that you were talking about? So how to register your agency with Alzheimer's Association? So you're saying, if we register our agency, when someone's looking for home care in that area will show up. That's a pretty good thing to do. Then I think everybody gets that link. It'll be in the slides too.
Speaker 3:And it's free. It's free to list yourself, so why not right? I want my resources to be as robust as possible.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, that's really good. And local internal listings of chapter offices Okay, oops, great. Do we have any questions so far, annette, anything in the chat.
Speaker 2:I do not see any questions, but feel free, claire is here to answer.
Speaker 1:She's very thorough so I can see where there may not be many questions. So tell us more about the Alzheimer's Message Board.
Speaker 3:Oh, I love this. I read it all the time. I think it's a really wonderful resource to not only educate ourselves either as caregivers or people living with dementia, but also as community members and providers. I always like to know what people are talking about, right? What's the common themes that people are seeing? Is there any outlier? Is there anything really different? So these are really cool.
Speaker 3:There's two sides to it. There's the discussion for people living with dementia and then there's also discussions for caregivers. So as a caregiver, maybe I do work a full-time job and I have children and I'm caring for mom. I don't have time to go to a support group, but I do have time to read these message boards and to see what knowledge other people have shared, to ask a question and say, hey, is this behavior normal or should I be concerned? So it's a really wonderful place for people to come together and share that knowledge from across the world.
Speaker 3:Right, it doesn't have to be just Buffalo, New York, it could be all over the place. And it's really lovely, too, to see the support that people living with dementia give one another, the questions that they ask, the openness that they have. The people are able to find that emotional outlet. So one of the things as a provider that I do is I just poke my head in see if there's anything different every once in a while that people are talking about for my own education and I share that with folks as needed. That's wonderful.
Speaker 1:What a great. That's really a great service. I love that and this could be the home care agency caregiver also. Go to view discussion for caregivers. Yeah, absolutely, that could be helpful for them as well.
Speaker 3:Oh, just as long as there's no PII, we're all good.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly how to connect with Alzheimer's in your area. So these are the ways to do that. So you have your chapter office locator page. I'll go and let you explain them, Claire, rather than me trying to.
Speaker 3:They're pretty straightforward. I have full confidence in you. But the chapter office locator page is exactly that. You type in your zip code. So for Buffalo, 14221, and it'll show you the area of service and the chapter that covers that area. So that would be Western New York and it would cover the eight traditional counties of Western New York. If I wanted to plug in California, I could plug in California and be connected to that chapter. So it really is lovely to be able to find resources nationwide. And if you're not quite sure what chapter serves what area, just plug in your zip code.
Speaker 3:It takes the work out of it. All's Talks is really interesting. These are kind of bite-sized discussions that we host, just with different information, different topics, to see what might interest folks. It's not a heavy level of commitment of time at all. I would say maybe 15 to 30 minutes, but it's a really beautiful way for people to educate themselves with the time that they have. We all have the same 24 hours in a day, but it's nice to be able to fill my drive with something that educates me. So if that's your cup of tea, go for it. And then this 24-7 helpline number that I've been just shoving down your throats is really wonderful, but this is the number, so 1-800-272-3900. It's 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. If it's 3am on Christmas morning and you are feeling some type of way about something, as a caregiver or as a person living with dementia, someone who's concerned about someone, you can call them and they will pick up.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful. We do have a couple of comments. This is so informational. I will definitely be reaching out to the Rochester New York chapter. Jessica says Claire, thank you. I was just researching how to educate, certify my caregiver on dementia. I appreciate the information that you all provided today. Wonderful. And here's the walk to an Alzheimer's, how to have your home care agency participate. So this is the link Find your walk is here. I love the colors and the shirts and all of it. It's really a good time. We had so much fun at these walks.
Speaker 3:Good, it's always a powerful day, so I'm glad you've I'm glad you've experienced it.
Speaker 1:Yes, Okay, anybody have any questions for Claire before we move into the next and it looks like Annette has something to say.
Speaker 2:Well, I was just going to say no questions, we're here. She's going to ask us. Oops, I think we have one now.
Speaker 1:This is wonderful. We had our local chapter come in for a Q&A with our staff. We have a team I'm sorry this is cutting out a team and well, and this year I joined. We have a team as well, and this time here, I joined the committee. Thanks again for the info. That's fabulous. All right, thank you so much, claire, for being here with us today. We've really been very informative. I learned a lot, thank you, and lots of resources. Thank you all.
Speaker 1:All right, so our home care, sales and marketing training and the live Zoom training. We have a few spots left for June 17th and June 26th. The people in this class guys, it's 12 weeks by week. Six. They're getting referrals from skilled nursing facilities. I can't speak highly enough of this program and it does such a good job. And if you want to learn more about it, we've got the registration link down here. It's on our website and you just won't believe all the things that you will learn in this class. We have testimonials. How many testimonials are on the website now? Valerie, 50. 50. All happy people that this has changed their marketing trajectory and they're just doing so much better. They didn't know what they didn't know. So if you have any interest in this. This is the registration link. We can talk to you after. Thank you everyone. Thanks for coming. I'll see you in a couple of weeks. Bye-bye, bye, everybody.
Speaker 2:Take care.
.png)