Courtesy of Era Living, Julia Goldie shares success stories as new residents settle into their new circumstances. Julia and Suzanne are discussing Social and Occupational Wellness, part of the Vitality Revolution podcast series sponsored by Humana. Seth is a social wellness expert, a licensed mental health. Julia Goldie is Life Enrichment Director at Era Living's Aljoya Thornton Place in Seattle, Washington.

Julia says, "I have one resident, she was a little bit on the younger side, and was kind of hesitant to move in at first, and has her own group of friends, and she was an introvert. But once she moved in, she found that she had a whole new new community of peers that she really just immersed herself with. And the change that I saw over the course of a month, where she thought she were going to stay kind of private, but now attends most dinners with the other residents, and goes on tons of outings. One of my favorite outings with her was to the Reptile Museum. You could pay $3 extra — and a whole bunch of our residents did it — and I look over, and there's this snake crawling on her arm. And she says, 'I'm taking pictures so we can send it to all of our friends.'

"We have a great community of artists here. We have a lot of people who dabble in it as interests or hobbies, and then there's the people who don't. And one of our newest residents said, "I'm not an artist. No, I don't do anything having to do with art." Well, a couple of the residents convinced her to come to one of the group art sessions. They are made for all groups, all skill levels, and she came in and she's like, "what do I do?" I said, 'It's gonna be really easy.' I explained the steps, and it was guided step by step. Draw a pattern, draw this. She left there with the biggest smile on her face. She says, 'I'm gonna come to every single one of these. I had an artist locked in me.'"

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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