Courtesy of Era Living, Julia Goldie joins Suzanne to talk about Social and Occupational Wellness, part of the Vitality Revolution podcast series sponsored by Humana. Julia Goldie is Life Enrichment Director at Era Living's Aljoya Thornton Place in Seattle, Washington. Julia helps new residents find purpose and passions by crafting an exciting calendar of activities.

Julia says, "90% of what we offer here is based on what residents interests are, what their passions are, what they want to learn about, where they wanna go, things that they want to see. And I think that's why we see such success with our participation. We offer a lot of variation. You're never gonna see three museum outings in one day. You're gonna see anywhere from 8 to 12 activities a day, every variation of groups sizewise, and you're gonna see things that are focused on art, with lifelong learning. Maybe a couple of times a week, you're going to see music, you're gonna see the resident-led group. Everything from Bridge to book club to the library committee, a little bit of everything each day, that there's one reason why every resident is going to want to get out of their apartment and join something.

"I pay particular attention when planning the calendar to make sure that there's options for people with different disabilities. For example, up in our conference center, we have a hearing loop. So people with hearing loss know that they can attend a lecture up there and still be able to enjoy it because their hearing aid will just go right up into the hearing loop. We have small group discussions where we are very mindful of who signed up for it, because maybe they need a different handout, or maybe we don't use handouts because somebody with vision loss is there. I make sure that there's outings that are accessible to people in wheelchairs, ones for people who are using a walker. I write a very clear description — is there going to be a step? Is there gonna be uneven terrain? Just making sure that it's very, very accessible to everybody.

"We pay super close attention to feedback. Our residents are not shy. We had a wonderful lecturer that comes here that talks about music history, and we had him as a one off. But the interest was so huge that now he comes every single month and packs the room, 85 people, maximum capacity."

Hear more:
Social Wellness episodes: https://answersforelders.com/vitality-revolution/social-wellness/
Occupational Wellness episodes: https://answersforelders.com/vitality-revolution/occupational-wellness/
Era Living episodes: https://answersforelders.com/era-living/

Learn more about:
Vitality Revolution podcast series: https://answersforelders.com/vitality-revolution/
Humana: https://www.humana.com/
Answers for Elders: https://answersforelders.com/welcome-to-answers-for-elders/.
Era Living at Answers for Elders: https://answersforelders.com/era-living/
Era Living's website: https://www.eraliving.com/
Aljoya Thornton Place: http://www.eraliving.com/communities/north-seattle/

Answers for Elders is part of the SeniorResource Network: https://www.seniorresource.com/

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