(Washington, D.C. – June 23, 2021) Linked Senior launches the first of its kind Resident Engagement Institute to empower senior living resident engagement leaders with education and data so they can rebuild stronger coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic to provide residents with the purposeful living experience they deserve.

Prior to the global pandemic, a 2016 CDC report^[1] indicated that assisted living residents receive just 20 minutes of engagement per day (outside of assistance with ADLs and IADLs) and long-term care residents receive only 11 minutes of engagement. Activity and life enrichment professionals still lack access to affordable education and tools to help them optimize resident engagement, especially as it relates to older adults living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Without a budget to hire high-level resident engagement experts to provide specialized education to all team members, small and mid-size operators cannot compete with large operators that often have a VP-level resident engagement and/or memory care expert on staff.

As the senior living industry emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic and begins to rebuild, it is time to rethink resident engagement strategies across the board so that residents receive consistent, preference-based engagement across all care settings. To achieve this, communities need to set benchmarks, use trends analysis and provide open access to the latest data on best practices for resident engagement in senior living. This type of approach is a business driver, not only because it improves the health and well-being of residents but also because it builds a culture of empowerment through education. This kind of culture can decrease staff turnover and increase staff satisfaction which in turn means that families of existing residents will recommend the community to others, making resident engagement a top occupancy driver in this post-COVID world.

Linked Senior is excited to launch the first of its kind Resident Engagement Institute so that prescription of social engagement can become the standard for senior living resident engagement. The Institute will empower senior living activity and life enrichment care partners with education, tools and support to elevate resident engagement for all Elders. It will provide care partners the opportunity to engage and consult directly with experts and offer education and tools to help them measure satisfaction and well-being of their residents so that they can optimize meaningful engagement for all residents no matter their current preferences or care needs.

“Starting today, our clients will have access to the Resident Engagement Institute, giving them an incredible competitive advantage in this market because they will have the most cutting edge resident engagement education and tools at their fingertips,” shares Charles de Vilmorin, Linked Senior CEO and Co-founder. “The Institute gives care partners the support they need so they can use their passion to fight social isolation and advance person-centered care for all residents.”

The Resident Engagement Institute will be led by Jennifer Stelter, Psy.D., CDP, CADDCT, CCTP, Chief Engagement Officer at Linked Senior. The Institute will offer Linked Senior clients immediate access to quality education, individualized consulting services, quarterly publications about best practices in resident engagement, statistics, and assistance with product development and improvement. As part of the Institute, clients will also work directly with Resident Engagement Specialists and “Faculty” members who are widely known in the industry as ‘resident engagement influencers.’ 

According to Dr. Stelter, “This Institute allows for activity professionals’ visions of resident engagement to become realities. Through proper education, research, collaboration, and support, the Institute will create benchmarks and standards proving the value of resident engagement in senior living and raising the bar of how to continually provide the best quality of life to the residents we serve. The greatest part is that the services and faculty, composed of experts in the field, will be accessible to activity professionals and staff continuously which will encourage them to rally with us in creating a new era of resident engagement.” 

Linked Senior is an evidence-based resident engagement platform for senior living. The platform optimizes the person-centered experience for residents by empowering staff with digital tools to assess, plan, implement and evaluate engagement for the entire resident population.

^[1]

CDC. Long-Term Care Providers and Services Users in the United States. Data from the National Study of Long-Term Care Providers, 2013-2014. February 2016.