Home Care Can Be the Answer
Consider this:
Allianz Life® commissioned the American Legacies Study designed to be the most comprehensive examination of intergenerational wealth transfer dynamics ever undertaken. It was undertaken to better understand the emotional and financial impact of wealth transfer of an unprecedented magnitude on American families. While no one can definitively predict the psychological, social and economic impact of this unprecedented movement of wealth, this new study revealed what matters most to both the Boomer’s and their elders’ generations today. Perhaps surprisingly with tens of trillions of dollars at stake, it’s not about the money.
This study, ostensibly, to begin understanding the dynamics of intergenerational wealth transfer revealed something unexpected:
By a factor of nearly 8 to 1 ‘boomers’ feel it’s far more important to preserve and pass on our elder’s ‘life-lessons and values’ than it is to receive tangible wealth.
Now Consider this:
Starting now and continuing for the next 20 years, these same ‘boomers’, 76 million of them, will be facing their most difficult life transition.
Noted Social Psychologist, Erik Erikson described this transition as the 8th stage.
Wisdom: Ego Integrity vs. Despair (late adulthood, 65 – death)
The task of this final developmental stage is retrospection: people look back on their lives and accomplishments. They need to develop feelings of contentment and integrity and believe that they have led a happy, productive life.
So, for our elders and especially those in care, reminiscing is not just a pleasant pastime but rather an integral part of successfully navigating this difficult life transition. We must reminisce with a purpose.
What this means:
We know the vast majority of our elder’s want, more than anything, to pass on their hard earned wisdom acquired through their life lessons and values. We also know that our elders have an inherent need to share those experiences with others to validate their existence and regain their sense of purpose.
Home Care Can Provide the Solution:
The industry is uniquely positioned to meet this un-met want and need. Fully 95% of the elements required to save these stories are already in place and well established within the operating environment. Your clients are standing at the threshold of one of their most significant life stages and successfully crossing that threshold is pertinent to everything that follows.
Why look to Home Care in Particular:
Just as succinctly as the bank robber, Willie Sutton’s response when asked why he robs banks, he said, “That’s where the money is.” So too, when it comes to finding, collecting and archiving the greatest wealth of human experience and wisdom, Home Care is where it’s found. And within this industry there are thousands of caregivers who provide elders assistance in multiple acts of daily living. Among these, companionship is both underappreciated and underutilized. Companionship plays a vital role in helping keep their clients socially engaged and connected with their world. But with a simple change in activity and the implementation of an intuitive program and innovative technology, companionship can build loyalty and trust while instilling the elders with a renewed sense of purpose and self-esteem while enriching their families.
How this can be accomplished:
The mission of LegacyStories.Org is to collect, archive and selectively share the living history of the 20th century. To accomplish our mission we combined the expertise and experience of experts in multiple Heritage and Health Care fields. These experts include: Genealogists, Historians, Biographers, Archivists, Professional Organizers, GCM’s, and Social Workers, Caregivers, Hospices, Memory Care, Grief Counselors, Psychologists, Estate Planners, and Wealth Managers, among others.
The result of this synergistic approach are programs that simply and systematically aggregate the stories of life’s experiences, and a cloud based platform to archive and selectively share those stories that is as intuitive as it is innovative.
LegacyTalks is a program specifically designed to meet this need and fulfill our mission statement: “Preserve the Past, Enrich the Present and Give Hope to the Future”
The free online program teaches caregivers how to scan vintage family photos with their Apple or Android smartphone or tablet, and record the client’s reminiscences. They upload these “Pict-Oral Memories” to the family’s legacy portfolio in LegacyStories.org for archiving and sharing.
Legacy Talks is the first of its kind photo reminiscing program for Home Care providers, and delivers a valuable solution that helps build loyalty, gain a competitive advantage and enrich the lives of the families they serve.
This program can be delivered to the clients and their extended families at no cost. It will have the effect of the agency being ‘written into’ the family history and provide an unparalleled communication channel directly to the family. And by extension it becomes a powerful marketing message to the greater community.
