My greatest mentor has always been my father, Dick Johnston. He’s 80 this year, residing with my mother in a retirement community in southern Ontario. My dad enjoyed an outstanding career as a consultant in organization development, building three large consultancies in his time. His motto: “Effective management systems are those which enable individuals to achieve their goals while achieving the goals of the organization.”

Who better to ask about human resources development in our industry than him, a consumer? Although he’s blind now, he has remained current through family, friends, satellite radio and his voracious appetite for talking books. When we began writing this article together, I expected he would want to focus on “developing the individual” in terms of management and staff. Instead he surprised me by wanting to tell his own story – focusing on the resident as the individual.

His story raises issues that we don’t talk about enough. He reminds us that individuals can actually be lonely in the midst of a crowd of other residents.

We’re all aware that changing demographics indicate a huge demand for senior housing in the coming decades. New accommodation and service models are emerging as developers and ›› providers consider the types of demands made by current clients and the anticipated desires of baby boomers, expected in the next 10 to 20 years. But as we focus on what the masses will want, we continue to ignore the very specific needs of the individual client.

Seniors move into our communities mostly under stressful circumstances created by some form of extreme loss. Yet to take advantage of their new lifestyle, residents are expected to connect rapidly with other residents and staff.

After listening to my dad’s observations, I question our present role in assisting the process:

• One resident cared full-time for an ailing spouse for the first two years. After her death, it was 18 months before he participated in any activities on his own.
• Another man lost both his sight and his wife just months before moving in. He had great difficulty meeting new people, finally connecting with my dad only after my mother introduced them.
• Dad had heard a former university president was a neighbour, but it took two years before a chance encounter led to their meeting and subsequent sharing of ideas, concepts and contacts.

My dad has gained a lot in his new friendships, and yet he found these men by accident. Their stories are no different from thousands of others in similar settings across Canada. How can we help residents overcome their losses and find meaningful connections quickly in their new homes?

As operators, we learn about our residents when we first meet during the “wooing” and leasing process. We might even follow up when they first arrive to see how they’re managing or to introduce someone from the welcome committee. But afterwards, we assume that they will find an activity or two that they enjoy in our social calendars, and everything will work out fine. (Doesn’t everyone love bingo?)

How do we ensure that our residents meet people with similar backgrounds and interests so they are able to make real friends sooner and feel a part of our communities in record time?

By looking outside our industry, we can find instances where this process is sped up:

• A golf club offers new members a “big sister/brother” to help integrate them into club activities for the first year.
• Private-school house leagues break down the school population into smaller groups, encouraging new students to participate in activities that earn points for their team. By choosing programs that interest them, they quickly meet new friends with similar interests.
• Online dating services match up users by comparing backgrounds and interests so that singles fast become couples.

Considerable resources are routinely spent on entertaining large groups of our residents. We rate success on the number of residents who attend. But what resources are we spending on programming that connects individuals with similar interests?

Smaller group activities do sometimes occur without our intervention:

• Residents establish a habit of meeting daily for morning coffee or a drink before dinner.
• Small groups of bridge players, knitters and pool players meet regularly to enjoy their hobbies together.
• Residents volunteer to help another resident with tasks such as personal shopping, writing a letter, walking the dog, etc.

But how do new residents join these groups? What if they don’t play bridge? By focusing more on individuals, we can assist residents with integrating quickly into our communities and gaining a sense of belonging. We need to do the following:

• Use information gathered prior to the move-in, matching new residents with like-minded people. (We ask permission for sharing health information – why not personal?)
• Monitor residents and existing groups to know when additional support is required.
• Encourage smaller activities and make it easy for neighbours to meet, classical music lovers to find each other and former career people to connect or even re-connect.

Loneliness needs to be resolved. Staff and management need to pay as much attention to it as they do to food service. I’ve asked myself this question: would I play trivia every week? Possibly.

Would I enjoy talking daily to others who’ve travelled to countries I’ve been to? Skied on slopes I’ve experienced? Love British murder mysteries? Absolutely!