Making the Call: Being Part of the Process, with Daphne Davis
It’s Thanksgiving, and families are coming together. Daphne Davis at Pinnacle Senior Placements meets with families all the time and there’s never a bad time. Families often call to tell her that they’ve seen a change in their senior loved one, or about a crisis, but it doesn’t have to be about that. You can call at any time, and she generally gets together to meet your loved ones in a home, asking questions about where their loved ones are in their journey. Her job is to help people retain their independence — be part of the process, have a voice, and not be dictated to — and still have quality life with the safety and the peace of mind for the family and the loved ones.
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*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
The following podcast is provided by pinnacles senior placements LLC and answers for elders radio. And Welcome to answers for elders radio. We are here with Daphne Davis from Pinnacle senior placements and it is the holiday season, thanksgiving time, November, and families are coming together. Daphne, and you are are wizard at understanding how to do that, and I’ll because you meet with families and every day I meet with families all the time. One of the things that when I’m first in making contact with someone and they’re kind of testing the waters, is it time to talk to Daphne or or time to talk to someone from Pinnacle Senior placements? There’s never a bad time. M The process begins with usually a family member calling me and saying this is the situation. Where in am I making the right phone call? And I’ll say absolutely, you know, whether we get together or not will still be determined, but tell me a little bit about what’s going on in your world. And so the family member usually tells me something that’s triggered or or happened, HMM, or something’s changed. Unfortunately, it’s usually a crisis type situation. Right, but it doesn’t have to be folks. You can call me any time that you have thoughts or questions. Anyone, a pinnacle can help you. It doesn’t have to be a crisis, right, right, but that phone call happens and then we’ll generally usually get together and we’ll set up a time of you know, I really want to meet your loved ones. That’s important to me. That’s one of my very highest values is that the people that I help are not a piece of paper, they’re not a list of symptoms. People are whole. You’re not a website that just people go in and and talk to some artificial person on the phone. No, it’s as eyeball to eyeball. This is about relationships and building trust, and so we’ll meet. Let’s just have a scenario of meeting in someone’s home and before that happens I might ask questions like, you know, are your mom and Dad thinking about moving or are they still resistive, or where are they at this journey? And most often I get well, they know that they need more help but they don’t know how to get that help or they’ve got all that the yeahbots. It’s a well, yeah, I need help but very cold. It’s exceedingly a hundred percent common just about and my job is to help people figure out how can they uphold their independence, how can they be a part of the process, how can they have a voice and not be dictated to but still have quality life with the safety and I’m going to add also the peace of mind for the family and the loved ones right that they can be a family again and not caregiver care receiver. Very, very good and and you know, that’s the thing. I think that is the hardest part when when you’re meeting with a loved one, and a lot of times it’s a crisis, not as sadly they don’t do it way in advance, and so emotions are high all the way around, whether it’s just with you know, your mom or dad or there’s a lot of pride factors that come into that. And and so obviously the kids, the grown up children, they all have their own perspectives. Well they do. And Yeah, it’s hard to step out of being the child. Let’s just start there. You know, I want to respect my family. I won’t. Dad says this is what he wants, he’s going to stay home, he’s going out of the house in a pine box. Sorry to be so graphic, but that, you know, I hear that the time. Mom loves her things. This is her castle. She folter towels and quarters, not thirds. She likes to have this pile of paper sitting right next to her because she can reach it. If I go someplace else, I can’t have those things. I’m there to say you can, but we need to communicate about that, right. And so I become the person who is, quote, the expert, or someone from Pinnacle does, and I’m might say, exactly the same words that daughter or son said, but it’s from a different person exactly. And they’re they’re probably going to tell you things that they don’t tell their children because of the pride factor and because the fact that they’re the parent. And and that’s the thing, I think that you and I’ve talked about so many times. It’s, you know, it’s that feeling of when you’re in that moment of having to have those difficult conversations with your loved one. You know your parent. They will always be your parent, and don’t ever try to think that now you’re in charge. No, that bout fire, that will does not work. No, it will backfire and depending upon the personalities. Right well, but but broad brush that will better there. And so when you allow me to be or you know Emiliar Leanna or whoever it is from our company, when you allow us to be a part of that process, the preressure is taken off from you, the child, and it’s also giving permission to the parents to kind of let their guard down a little bit. Children always ask me, should we be there with you, and I always say absolutely, and the reason for that is is that I want everyone to hear the same information at the same time. Absolutely, we don’t want to have the telephone effect where we hear, you know, words one way and they get set another way. But it also allows for those conversations that they don’t have to be hard, but maybe a little uncomfortable to start with. My experiences is that once you have that third party and who is willing to build relationship and earn trust key key pieces, then we start having a just a dialog, right, it’s not an interrogation, it’s not on mom we have to do this now or this is going to happen. And you know what, one of the things that you’re talking about that sets pinnacle apart, and I think that’s really you know, there’s there’s TV commercials out there all the right time. You know on sites out there that you can go to, but there’s really nobody in the room. If you use that kind of service that will help you have those conversations, and there’s nobody. They don’t understand your parents values, they don’t understand your family values and what’s most important to you. They don’t have any clue about any sort of updated information as far as what’s going on with the current communities here in the area. And so you know somebody like you that is not only really, really in touch with what’s going on in the industry. You know what are the best places to move into and what, but most importantly it’s that values piece. It is and how can you meet them? How can we meet the values? Nobody wants to compromise on their life. No, who North should they? Exactly? No, note, you know, and that’s the thing. I think that is so I think, overlooked and in so many cases when people think, well, you know what, what is it that you do? You know, I think one of the biggest thing is is that you honor the values of every family. There’s no cookie cutter answers and and you know, to just go on a website and say I need to find, you know, a place for my parent to live in. It’s doesn’t it doesn’t work that way in Stereo. It doesn’t work that way. No, you know, I’d like to share just a little story Meta family at seminar that I was doing and they contacted me and so let’s get back together and I go into their home and there’s so many dynamics between all the players, which is in every family. Folks, every single family ABS and my job that day was just a kind of appeal the onion back and get to the heart of what was going on. And it was. It was clear that something needed to change for mom and dad to be successful in their home and we came to to a first step. But the important thing of this story is that we came to a first step that everybody could agree on. They’ll probably be the second step and a third step, but it’s honoring where families are at that time right now, that whoever you choose to be an advisor for you is not a decisionmaker, is not the one who gets to be a railroad person and say, well, this has to happen. This is the ultimate goal. Now that person should be someone who listens and tells you what your options are and how can we eventually get right to the ultimate goal, Rub Safety, quality of life, etc. Right, and I know that that we are. By the way, we are talking to Daphne Davis at Pinnacle senior placements and, Daphitely, you guys serve basically stahomish, king and Pierce counties and kids up right. Yeah, that’s exactly right. So you know your services. You have advisors all over greater puget sound. That and I know that you will even go farther outside those boundaries when when necessary. Yep, I know you even told me about you went up to ORC as island. When I did, I got to go to ORC as island. So I love work, as I would me too. And but you know, getting back to the conversation, as far as understanding kind of where families are, I think really one of the things that I think you know your purpose or your role is that to be. You know, you talked about yourself that you’re an information post, YEP, and being that information post, it’s basically you’re not making the decision, but when these conversations are are being facilitated with a family, you’re able to give them the full spectrum of what this is about and how you know. So it makes the conversations really go easier. It does in my you’re exactly right. It’s I’m going to listen intensely, be an active listener, I’m going to hear and ask questions that will allow me to discover from my perspective what needs to be happening. But more importantly is I’m going to share information back that allows the family to self discover, Oh, we had no idea that that was an option. Realize this. Yeah, you know, like like you’ve opened my eyes and, believe it or not, as long as I’ve been in the industry, but you’ve shared with me a lot of the things that that advantages of adult family homes that I didn’t even understand specifically yea, and that really has opened my eyes in so many ways of different options for seniors, and I think that’s really, you know, wonderful. Sometimes we get into not having enough information and what I find a lot is people make a mistake. Yeah, in the journey and one of our goals at pinnacle is to not have our families make it as many mistakes and sometimes you know it’s going to happen and they’re all fixable. So don’t worry, take action, move forward, contact someone to be able to just have a conversation, and that’s what pinnacle is. We have a conversation. I want to remind all the listeners that there’s no fee for my services at all to the families. None, zero, no fine print, no hidden the general into nothing. I am paid like a realtor. I work with every single community of care in the state of Washington. I don’t eliminate any communities because of a financial gain or loss finances. Is Not what this is about. This is about having quality care for elders who deserve to have respect, love, safety. Absolutely, you know that’s what this is about. Absolutely well, definitely. We are so blessed to have you as part of our team and you know, I know I keep sending you people because I really believe in your value system and I’m so glad you’re part of our team. So thanks for again being on our show today. I love being here too. Now, how do we reach you? Best way is eight hundred fifty five seven thirty four, one thousand five hundred again. That’s eight hundred and fifty five, seven thirty four, one thousand five hundred. And we also have our website at Pinnacle Senior Placementscom. Al Righty, and the happy, happy Thanksgiving to you and do you and to you. The preceding podcast was provided by pinnacles senior placements LLC and answers for elders radio. To contact pinnacles senior placements, go to Pinnacle Senior Placementscom.
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Originally published November 17, 2018