What's trust got to do with it?
We threw a Harvest Festival for our residents. This is my Administrator and myself modeling the photo booth area. Can't get over how good I look with a mustache!
Relationships are built on trust. I don’t even know who to credit for that saying because I’m sure every psychology guru out there has stated it before. My job is to develop a relationship with a family and their senior, move them into our building, and then move onto the next one. I tend to get attached once the relationship is formed, however, and I have found that continuing to work to develop and foster that relationship after someone has moved into my Assisted Living Facility (ALF) has really paid off.
When my residents know and trust that I truly care about them, I know so much more than if I was to just be that gal who moved them into the building then washed her hands and went onto the next prospective resident. Billie*, one of my residents, shared with me the other day that she was going to come into some money shortly and wanted to let me know about this opportunity she’d found for free cash. Knowing she’s on state assistance (Medicaid) and hard pressed for money, my ears immediately perked up. I asked her what she meant, and she showed me an ‘article’ in the paper stating that the Oregon treasury had an ‘influx of two-dollar bills’ and was giving away sheets of them to residents of Oregon whose zip code started with 97. All Billie needed to do was mail in a check for $38 for shipping/handling, and over $250 in cash would be mailed to her the next day! Wow!
It made me really sad to explain to her that this was a scam, that no one was mailing her money, and that the pictures depicting police officers pushing around carts of money probably weren’t real. She was disappointed and kept looking over the article as if to find some detail that would prove to me it was real, but she trusted me enough to believe me when I looked her in the eye and said that no one was sending her money. She agreed not to mail the check she’d written for $38, and promised to come talk to me before mailing money anywhere.
I have a couple residents who are pretty nosy and ornery (imagine that!), and like to try and get way too involved in everyone else’s business, including the staff's. For example, one gal walked around for a few days hell-bent on asking every single employee of the ALF what their wage was and if they were satisfied with it. Yikes. We recently ran into a bit of a tricky situation where we were promoting a new employee to a different position, and the residents were all very supportive and excited for this change. Upon further inspection, however, we realized this employee didn’t pass their background check, and therefore had to be terminated immediately.
Because of strict privacy policies that we have to adhere to, we couldn’t tell any residents why this employee was terminated. We made a statement at our monthly Resident Council meeting that he was no longer an employee, and that this was not a decision that we had made, or that he had made. Most of our residents were disappointed but satiated, but a select few took it upon themselves to determine exactly why he was no longer an employee. The next day, one of them came into my office and let me know that she was so upset with us over this, and that she was going to use her contacts from her previous career working at a newspaper to try and determine if he was deported.
I was so frustrated when she told me this. I understand she only had the ex-employee’s best intentions in mind, but she was stirring up a revolution with other residents to try and uncover information that would ultimately be detrimental to him. I couldn’t explain this to her, however, because it would be in violation of several HIPPA policies. I took a deep breath, put my hands on her shoulders, and said, ‘For his sake, please stop looking into this. Please leave this stone unturned. Trust me.' She looked at me inquisitively for a moment, and then said, ‘Okay. If you really think that, I’ll tell the others. When they know Tracy said to leave it, they’ll leave it. We trust you.’ And with that she walked off.
I will be the first to admit that this resident and I don’t see eye-to-eye very often. She likes to stir the pot and has a bit of a flair for the dramatic, but I have put in work to maintain our relationship and potentially build a bit of a friendship. Even if she doesn’t always like me, she trusts me, and that means the world to me.
*Indicates a name has been changed
