Are you ready to help your parents choose a retirement community?

by Melanie Jongsma, Director of Communications

Emily M. Butler-Morton is a marketer with a heart. She spent 25 years in various marketing positions with various senior living communities. During that time, she helped hundreds of seniors and their families through the process of first accepting the idea of moving into a retirement community, and then finding the perfect community to move to. She has distilled her experience into a small, helpful paperback titled Care Enough to Know—Keep Your Parents Safe.

I just finished reading this book, and I think it's a valuable resource. Emily's experience as a former "insider" in the senior living industry gives her a unique perspective. As a marketer, her job was to attract people to whatever senior community she was working for, and to present them with the information she felt would persuade them to move in. Her integrity and sincere desire to help people are the motivation behind her book. As she writes in her Foreword:

"My role as Marketing/Community Relations Director in various communities...has included encouraging members of a somewhat vulnerable age group (56 and up) to make a major life change by moving into some type of congregate living for seniors. I moved these people in with a clear conscience, thinking that I was helping them and believing that they would receive the services as promised. ...In many cases this turned out to be true, but in other instances I found myself cringing in the face of reality as I observed the poor quality of service provided to folks I had promised a better life to, folks who trusted me. This has bothered me to the point of knowing I must speak out. ...That is my sole purpose for writing this book."

The 115-page paperback includes chapters such as:

• Know How to Begin
• Who Should Live in a Senior Living Community?
• Know the Choices
• Know the Obstacles
• Know How Care Levels are Determined

Emily's "Care Enough to Ask, Look, and Do" chapter is particularly helpful. It is made up of a series of questions that people should ask of any retirement community they are considering. The questions are divided into categories such as Food, Financial, Safety, and Comfort, and the author gives some action steps on the best way to gather the information. "Visit at odd times," she says, for example, "late at night and on weekends. How many staff members are working?" She also suggests interviewing current residents to find out what they like and don't like about the community.

Throughout the book, Emily includes stories from her own experiences to illustrate her points. The stories help readers to visualize the outcomes of applying Emily's tips, and, in some cases, they serve as examples of what can happen when wrong decisions are made. All the stories are true, though the names have been changed.

Care Enough to Know is a self-published book, and it could benefit from the services of a qualified editor and designer, but the content is solid. If you anticipate needing to find a senior living community for yourself or your parents, I recommend reading Care Enough to Know before you begin. The book is available at the author's website, www.theparentcare.net, or from Amazon.com.

After you've read it, I'd love to hear your own review of it! Post a comment below.