Jane Teasdale, Business Development Director and Principal Owner will deliver the talk The Meaning of Me®

The Meaning of Me is a Canadian blueprint for addressing the complex whole that is the person at the centre of the community based home care services model.

“What do older people with high physical and mental support needs say they want and value in their lives?”

This question was posed by a 2011 Joseph Rowntree Association report “A Better Life – What older people with high support needs value”. It made some key observations some of which I note below.

“older disabled people are generally still viewed through the “medical model” (in which the focus is on the impairment) and the discourse is one of dependence, care, dignity, frailty and pity…. The focus has been on their needs in relation to services, rather than their broader aspirations in relation to their lives.”

“All of us, regardless of age, need opportunities to show others who we are and to feel good about ourselves… many older people with dementia want and are able to tell us about their views and experiences, even if they are confused about some factual details of their lives.”

To date the private and public home care service model has largely been built around the delivery of personal support and to a lesser extent medical assistance. Clearly this is a very important base, but it fails to address personal, social and emotional needs, desires and objectives of the individual.

How can firms develop a more complete model of care? Well there are a number of things they can do.

They can set out to find out more about the individual’s life history, interests, hobbies, challenges, wishes interests and values within a framework and medium that engages the individual, care givers and family in an ongoing conversation. As a firm, we have developed and instituted a personalized conversation framework, “The Meaning of Me®”, around which we deliver lifestyle services and activities.

Mosaic has been asked to present on its unique Person Centred Care Service, “The Meaning of Me®”, at the European Society for Person Centered Health Care’s Fourth Annual Conference and Awards Ceremony in London UK 26th and 27th October 2017. For more information and to review the programme.