Posts
Southern Cross, Inc
What does an Elder Care Mediator do and how?
Elder Care Mediator's have a specialized process knowledge base and understanding of the life changing issues faced by elders and their families. They assist in navigating the uncertain path created by unplanned changes in the physical, emotional, and relational well being of parents. With the deliberate implementation of conflict resolution tools and mediation methods such as evaluative, facilitative, transformative and narrative approaches there is a safe environment for all stake-holders including the elder. Elder mediator guidance facilitates families efforts in finding the best quality of life decisions for an elder and their family with the overall goal of integrating new relationship dynamics through the conflict resolution process.
A debilitating physical change in a parent that has long been the pillar of strength in a family creates many needs and emotional dynamics among family members. The development of perceptions about the distribution of family support can create conflict within the family unit making necessary communication's strained and possibly leading to relationship deterioration.
The cognitive changes related to age may also come to impact the daily household management. The ability to manage finances effectively and safely become of concern in concert with the vulnerability created by the loss of the physical ability. How to approach dealing with this can be source of serious conflict among family members that significantly alters relationships and hampers the ability of the family to respond to the immediate needs of the elder. How does a family navigate these difficult places?
Elder mediation is future focused and is a mechanism for elders and families to address finances, joint responsibility and decision making, medical care, end-of-life decisions, guardianship, Property maintenance, personal privileges to name a few.
2 comments:
Great post, neatly distilling a lot of the issues and challenges facing Elders as they confront the inevitable realities of aging. Elders and their families face a complex, confusing maze of big, life changing decisions, and most people only navigate this maze of decisions a handful of times in a lifetime (e.g. mom, dad, self). An expert in elder care is familiar with the issues and can suggest positive ways to address them. Though I view the role of Mediator as separate and distinct from that of Care Manager, I also completely concur with the value of a mediator to help families navigate these waters. Roles shift, many interests must be balanced, decisions are big and life changing. Previously unnoticed family dynamics may suddenly cause disharmony. Mediation offers the possibility of working through all the issues in a positive, safe environment. It may even strengthen family relationships through the process of building teamwork and positive ways of responding to challenges as elders navigate these deep and sometimes turbulent waters. In terms of wearing both hats, do you think it's ethically permissible to act in the role of both Care Manager and Mediator, on the basis of the thought that both are bound to serve as neutrals who empower Elders and their families remain as autonomous and true to their family values as possible? Or, for example in the case of a dispute between two parties, would the Care Manager by definition be unable to be neutral on account of the fact that at some point it is necessary to make some concrete decision even if one party disagrees?
Thank you for such a thoughtful post. Very good questions I can answer from how I have chosen to integrate the ethos' of the Registered Nurse, Professional Care Manager and Professional Neutral. This is my disclaimer of my bias'
It depends on my originating role. As RN/PCM my role is advocacy first that reflects the patient's maximal self-determination and causes no harm. The tools of conflict resolution are used throughout all the manner of management and involves facilitation and mediation skills in contained action oriented exchanges on behalf of the elder. Revealed by the many family facilitations and then add the complex medical maze with many more tentacles of facilitation's. All of these interactions are for the ADVOCACY of the Elder's self-determined path which is my bias. The RN/PCM then is a advocate tool to the execution of the self-determined path.
The practice and necessity of elder mediation is most likely going to occur when there are objections to the self-determined path or during the act of determining the path. If engaged the elder mediator becomes and advocate for the very act of self-determination for the whole of the system stakeholders by providing a neutral process. If I were the RN/PCM I would call a peer to sit at the mediation table. As a RN/PCM My bias is specific for the best outcome of the elder. The neutral is for the best outcome of the process and can only do that from outside the elder's systems of support. So though there is role duality by advocating for self-determination the RN/PCM is singular and the Elder mediator is system focused.
So we are looking at two distinct roles that have many overlapping skills and that have distinct areas of application.
Thank you,
Kim Bunker RN BSN LNC & Professional Care Manager
Post a Comment