ElderAware™
Life is an ever-changing montage of experiences molded into memories. As we age, the ratio of one to the other slowly reverses, too often until little is left but the memories from a lifetime of experiences. Understanding the aging process while still relatively young can be a challenging and often unsuccessful feat for those younger persons who work with older populations. Unfortunately, while an unsuccessful intergenerational encounter may be experienced as a mere annoyance to a younger person, dozens of possible social scenarios in relation to gender, power, culture, and age inequities inherent in American society could cause that same encounter to be experienced as upsetting, traumatic, or even frightening to the older person on the other side of the exchange.
While the aging process is experienced in different ways by individual persons, powerful social factors converge to create shared attitudes, beliefs and expectations among persons of the same generation. For example, the World War II generation of seniors in the U.S. shares attitudinal characteristics unique to that generation, feelings very different from those shared by persons of succeeding generations such as the Baby Boom, Gen X, or Gen Y birth groups. These disparities in attitudes, beliefs and expectations can lead to feelings of deep dissatisfaction, resentment, and even anger, when challenged by conflicting attitudes or unmet expectations during interpersonal experiences in the paid economy. In fact, American seniors consistently report that their needs are too often misunderstood or intentionally disrespected by the younger persons who serve them or care for them.
The ElderAware™ program offers custom-tailored workshops for business and health care providers created to improve and facilitate positive and productive intergenerational communication in professional settings. Your ElderAware™ completion certificate tells your current and prospective customers, clients, and patients that you value their business and care about the quality of their experience with your company, practice, or institution.
ElderAware™ for Business
Almost every business owner and manager knows that the number one rule for success in any business is to "know your clientele." And yet most companies that depend on a primarily older consumer base for their bread and butter do little to nothing in the way of training their employees to better serve a population that, in the majority of cases, is substantially older than they are. The most common reason given for this perceived lack of need is that most managers think they already possess the necessary insight for effective communication with persons of different ages.
Asked if he had received any special training in intergenerational communication skills, the 28 year-old sales manager of a business catering to an overwhelmingly senior clientele answered, "Hey, man, we all have grandparents, you know?"
Is this man working for you?
We all know that businesses consistently achieving high levels of customer satisfaction are more likely to grow and prosper. In fact, research has shown that a current client/customer is worth five times more to a company than a new one, clearly highlighting the importance of retention through satisfaction.
Positive intergenerational communication skills are crucial to survival in today's market. How much business are you losing because your employees are not adequately trained to serve an older population? We can help. We offer customized consulting and training, including our proprietary Elderaware™ program, expertly designed to help you better serve your older clientele and, accordingly, receive the benefits of improved client retention and increased referral business.
The ElderAware™ Program for Business is custom-tailored to your specific needs. It is particularly valuable for front-line service and hospitality workers, sales and executive professionals, and others working on a regular basis in face-to-face encounters with older populations.
Designed around practical cross-generational communication skills to provide positive "first-contact" client interaction and continued positive interaction through subsequent encounters, benefits to you and your company include both immediate positive outcomes such as a sale or a satisfied client encounter, and delayed positive outcomes or "snowball" effects such as increased guest/client/customer retention and increased referral leads.
If you or your business serves an older population, contact us to learn how we can help you become ElderAware™.
ElderAware™ for Health Care Providers
Studies show improved health outcomes in geriatric patients when providers access learning opportunities that improve communication with older populations. While most Americans are currently unaware of the geriatrics gap plaguing the health care industry, a 2002 commissioned study for the Alliance for Aging Research conducted by the 
Opinion Research Corporation found that when they are made aware, 96% of all Americans believe that it is important for their providers to have "aging-specific training." As Americans become better educated about the geriatric gap in formal training arenas, and as the population continues to skew older, patients will begin to seek out those providers that demonstrate a commitment to quality of care for their aging patients. ElderAware™ exposes participants to specific principles of communication with geriatric populations while facilitating increased understanding of the social and behavioral processes that contribute to the urgent need for such skills.
We are facing a multitude of simultaneous crises in our health care infrastructure. Understaffed facilities are on a collision course with a rapidly aging population at the same time the number of geriatric-trained physicians, nurses and support personnel continues to decline at an alarming rate. The ElderAware™ program for health care providers was developed in direct response to the crisis of the ever-widening geriatrics training gap, the largest educational gap in any discipline. By the time the baby boomers exert their greatest pressure on the system, we will have fewer than 25% of the geriatric providers needed to adequately care for this jumbo generation.
As social scientists and communication experts, we cannot help health care providers appropriately treat an aging body. However, we can help providers appropriately, and effectively, interact with the aging person inhabiting that body. The workshop program examines the psychosocial drama of provider-patient interaction within the context of the overarching social factors of age and aging in the U.S. Workshop participants are exposed to specific principles of communication with geriatric populations while gaining an increased understanding of the social and behavioral processes that contribute to the urgent need for such skills.
The ElderAware™ program for health care providers includes custom-tailored workshops specific to both provider type and frequency of provider-patient interaction. Thus, workshops are peer-oriented for referential consistency. All workshop participants explore foundational intergenerational communication skills and socio-cultural aspects of age and the aging process in an interactive, experiential format.
Florida providers: please check with CE Broker for up-to-date CE information or call/email our office for more information.
Out-of-state institutional facilities: we will seek appropriate CE provider credentialing for your employees upon execution of institutional contracts.
ElderAware™ consulting and speaking engagements for health care providers also available.
Contact us to learn more about the ElderAware™ for Health Care Providers Program.
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