Senior Community Program

A couple of years after Mastery Link International was established, the founder of our organization began forwarding our weekly personal and organizational development messages to his 86 year old mother with the idea of giving her “Something to Think About.” At first, he thought her positive reaction was just what mothers do.  Her compliments reminded him of 41 years earlier when he was an aspiring artist in the 1st grade and she hung his art work on the refrigerator door for everyone to see.

However, as time passed, there was a particularly busy month of travel in which he missed forwarding a few messages.  His mother called wondering why she hadn’t received a message in a while?  It turned out that she had been forwarding the messages to her friends and each message became something this group looked forward to receiving.  Each message had become a bright spot of inspiration in their day.

This reaction lead to the development of a formal Senior Community Program.  Through the gracious help of the management staff at Sunshine Gardens Senior Community, we were able to refine and expand the program to provide more specific content for Senior Living Centers.  Through this program, we accomplish a three-fold mission:

• Provide staff development messages that inspire greater personal excellence and thereby enhanced resident care.  (This segment of the program stays within our traditional business focus.)
• Provide messages that encourage each resident to realize that they have so much yet to contribute and to remind them how they can continue to make a difference.
• Provide a connecting conversational point with a resident’s extended family as they share in the distribution of each message.

First, staff development is always a challenge to fit into the daily work environment.  However, the brevity of our messages allows the staff to find time to read or listen to each message.  Their powerful content makes it immediately meaningful and relevant.  With each topic that is discussed, a practical example is then provided through an applicable story.  Each story is designed to enhance the connectivity between an intellectual understanding of a topic and a practical application in the daily flow of work.  These short inspirational stories reinforce core values, encourage positive attitudes and promote personal growth.

Our curriculum based approach is explained in the ‘Executive Summary’ located under the Services tab however, the general principle is that we learn any subject or talent over time and thus a curriculum builds upon itself and allows us to realize a mastery level of proficiency.  The name of this segment of the program is called “Developing Excellence in Resident Care.”

Secondly, is the  “Something to Think About” segment of the program.  This is often implemented through the Activities Director.  Each inspirational message is delivered via e-mail to the director or designated individual every 5 days — totaling 5 messages per month.  They are provided in both a printable 14 point Microsoft Word document as well as an MP3 audio format.  This allows each message to be appropriate on both an individual basis as well as a group ‘Conversation Hour’ setting.

It was only recently that we found it to be valuable for a Senior Living Center to forward the ‘Something to Think About’ messages to the family members of the residents.  This allows the extended family to be engaged in the same activity and provides them with ‘Something to “Talk” About.’

While visiting one of the centers we serve, I met the son of one of the residents.  His mother had recently moved in as a resident and he mentioned he was struggling to find something new to talk about with her.  Through our conversation, I told him about what we provide for the residents.  He asked if there was any way we could send those same messages to him so they could share in this activity.  His wonderful idea rounded out this third segment of our program.

In every instance, each message is designed to be a source of encouragement —- to remind each of us that we can make a difference in others lives.

Sample Messages

To view sample resident messages, Click Here.  The sample site displays “Today’s Message.”  To view additional messages, click on the “Archived Messages” tab.  You may want to start at the oldest message and work your way back to the most recent as some messages refer to previous topics.  You can also click on the following link Carl’s Garden Audio File to listen the audio version of one of the messages.  This is representative of the content under the “Something to Think About’ and ‘Something to Talk About’ segments.

Please click on the following link to read a sample Staff Development message: Facts-Verses-Meanings-Staff-Development or click here Facts Verses Meanings – Audio Format to listen to the audio version.  This message falls under the ‘Developing Excellence in Resident Care’ segment of our program.

These few paragraphs only provide a brief introduction.  Please Contact Us to request additional information you might need to further evaluate this program. We welcome the opportunity to have additional conversation about how we can assist in your staff development initiatives as well as being a voice of encouragement to the residents of your center.

• Discipline

  • "The wisest mind has something yet to learn." George Santayana

• Sacrifice

  • "The most important thing is to be able at any moment to sacrifice who you are for what you could become." Charles Dubois