Helping Younger Adults in Long-Term Care
In October 2005 Jackie Egg was given the challenge of designing a service delivery model for the young adult population at Bethany CollegeSide, a continuing care facility located on the campus of Red Deer College. While most of the Bethany CollegeSide residents are seniors, the facility has a special unit for young adults (ages 18 to 65), which opened in May 2004. The residents in this unit were struggling with a number of serious issues that were affecting their quality of life.
"I came into that job with almost 20 years' experience in long-term care and I can say that this was truly the biggest challenge of my career. Many of the residents in the young adult unit were in their 40s. Although they had totally different interests from the older residents, they were in an environment that was designed to support the needs of the elderly. It wasn't surprising there were problems."
Jackie spent a great deal of time developing relationships with the young adult residents and, as a result, she was able to formulate a service delivery plan that was attuned to their needs. Just six months after the program was implemented, Jackie joined the SEARCH VI cohort. For her local project, she chose to study the factors that contribute to quality of life for young adults in continuing care. "To say SEARCH was perfect timing would be an understatement. We wanted to evaluate the program, but we first needed to know what indicators and measures should be used. And that is exactly what I did for my project."
A formal program evaluation is now underway, headed by a quality practice leader from the Bethany Care Society, the organization that runs Bethany CollegeSide. Jackie, who was working as an instructor at Red Deer College, is on the evaluation steering committee. "The one major lesson that's come out of my research is that young adults in continuing care must be looked at with an entirely new lens. Services must be designed to address their unique needs."