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The Family Circle: What is a family meeting?
What is a family meeting?
These past few months I have mentioned family meetings, so, what exactly are they?
The first thing I would recommend is to have an outside person facilitate your family meeting. This can be a trusted neighbor, clergy, a geriatric care manager or county social worker if your loved one is connected to county services.
A family meeting is often recommended when there has been a change in your loved one’s health or need to relocate to an assisted living or memory care facility.
The purpose of having a facilitator is to help the family stay on track of what the meeting is about. Generally, there is an agenda that is sent out ahead of time to help everyone be aware of what will be discussed. It is important to use this time to discuss your loved one and what the needs are and not get caught up in “family issues.”
So, once the day, time and agenda have been set up there may be family members who are unable to attend but can take part via a conference call, which works just fine.
When the day arrives, if there is a facilitator in place, they will open with introductions and the agenda that brings them all together. Often it is to decide how to safely honor the loved one’s wish to stay at home and how to go about doing this in as
The Family Circle
LAUREL HED Columnist
safe a manner as possible.
I read a book once titled “Share the Care: by Cappy Capossela and Sheila Warnock, which has been my best resource.
One person doesn’t need to carry the entire caregiving role. When a family shares the care, you have a family meeting, list the areas in which your loved one needs help, and then have the discussion.
In our family, I enjoy grocery shopping, cleaning and I take clients to appointments for a living so it made sense that those were the areas that I would help our mom in. My oldest brother lives in the same town, so he was already getting the many phone call requests and took on the financial role when it became too difficult for Mom.
When there are more people this model works even better in dispersing the caregiving roles. No one
person must get burned out and with more people involved the loved one ends up having many more visits throughout the month which is really a winwin for everyone.
And new changes come up, then a second family meeting may be beneficial to discuss the next steps in your loved one’s journey.
Open communication is key with family and your loved one.
With all meetings, be sure someone agrees to be the scribe. These notes are then typed up and shared with everyone, so all are on the same page. It is all about communication! Laurel Hed is a licensed social worker and geriatric care manager for the elder law attorneys of Thomason Swanson and Zahn Law Firm.
