Helping clients go back home, “Makes a Mark” on the Client and Case Worker

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Gateway to Community Living is a program administered by the Area Agency on Aging with the goal being to help transition persons out of the nursing home, that are able, back into the community.  While it is human nature to want to live independently, it is not always possible.  However, this program has made the impossible, with careful care planning, become possible.

    The fact is, many nursing home residents can improve.  They may have broken a hip or had a stroke which caused them to need that level of care but over time, they improved and would prefer to live independently again.  The Gateway program will assess the situation and work to make going home possible, if safety and security can be assured.

     Kacey Davidson is the Transition Coordinator for this program and she shares how this role has fulfilled her as she works to “Make a Mark” on the futures of clients she helps transition home.

      “My client was living in a nursing facility due to advanced stage dementia. She did not have any children and her husband had passed many years ago. The only family that remained was her “spiritual children”. I met with these women who called her “Mama” because they said my client raised them even though she had no relation to them. She fed them when they had no one else, she gave them a place to live when they had nowhere else to go, she prayed over them, as well as, with them when they were feeling lost. She was at the end of her life and they wanted to repay the kindnesses she had shown them. They wanted her to live at home as long as possible. Stay in the same home where she cooked for them, had pictures and memories of her life, and be in her own home even though her time of life was coming to an end. We were able to work with hospice to provide adequate in-home services to transition her back home. When I first met her in the nursing home, she did not speak much. But the day she came home, she took me around to all her pictures and told me exactly who everyone was. She hugged and kissed me and told me she loved me. She had only met me a handful of times and I could feel the love her “spiritual children” had experienced all of their lives. It was a blessing to be able to assist in getting her back home where she was able to continue to live in familiarity.”