What is Elder Facilitation?
Ageing is not a linear timeline of a slow, predictable retreat from life, pending our ultimate demise.
Instead, over time, it will be interspersed by a series of cascading events varying in significance. In many cases it will give rise to a cleavage between the 2 big ‘F’ words of how we lead our later lives – the fight between fun and frailty. I won’t address the Fun word in this article but in a later one. Rather, in this post, I will address the impact of Frailty.
Frailty will result in becoming dependant on others, most notably, family members.
This dependency throws up a panoply of ‘balls in the air’ for families. These balls traverse a breadth of issues, not discretely, but all intrinsically intertwined. Regrettably, most of us wait for the ‘C’ change – the crisis, leading to having to frantically search and find solutions in a miasma. Crisis management is a poor platform for good decisions.
Some of those ‘balls’ include:
- What are mum and/or dad’s aspirations in later life
- What alternative forms of accommodation are available
- How much would those options cost
- What financial advice is needed
- Are essential estate planning documents in place
- What roles should members of the family play
- What care options are available to stay at home
- What if mum and dad have to be separated by circumstance or illness
- If your parents are in a second relationship how will later life needs be met as between them
- Et al
These balls are thrown up before, not after, the need arises. A revolutionary idea but it is really just an extended form of family planning, which many of us may be familiar with from our earlier lives. Planning is almost a cliché but, in my experience, it has the powerful effect of empowering the family to educate themselves and understand what the various threads need to be addressed if the need arises. It is prospective as opposed to retrospective. It is also a platform for all of the family to get on board or the same page, a crucial issue when family stress for their parents arise.
To this end, I conduct Elder Facilitation – a meeting with an agenda for families, including the parents, to identify the future issues and understand what decisions may need to be made.
Makes sense to me, but it requires most people to confront the future and stop watching their parents and waiting for something to happen.
It requires courage.
