Happy New Year to all!  We had a wonderful New Year celebration at Cedar Village.  We actually rang in the new year a day early, holding our party on Sunday evening. Our good friend, Greg Lee, was here and he added wonderful music and great fun to our evening.  After a wonderful dinner of either veal or salmon and a delicious Black Forest cake, we shared a champagne toast to wish for a year of health, happiness and peace for all of us and our families.  Then Greg played a wonderful selection of dance music and we watched lots of folks enjoying their time on the dance floor.  We even had a backdrop set up so that we could shoot some formal photos of our guests and that got lots of use.  Everyone looked wonderful, dressed in their finest and many of the ladies had taken advantage of our special beauty shop that we'd set up in the afternoon, helping everyone to look their best for the party.  We love to celebrate as a family and a community and new year's was a wonderful opportunity to do just that.

We were also delighted to have Teepa Snow here with us this week. Teepa is a nationally known consultant and educator on dementia and she has been working with us for a number of years.  With her guidance, we have instituted a training program for all of our staff to become certified as Dementia Care specialists.  There are four levels of certification.  All of our staff have achieved Level I, we are close to achieving Level II status with everyone as well.  Part of Teepa's teaching involves a system for defining levels of dementia as gems.  She says that she uses the gem analogy because each person is a unique and precious and, with the right setting, they can shine.  We've all learned the levels from Sapphire through Pearl (there are six levels in all), the tools and techniques that work best at each level and the ways in which to best identify the level of a specific individual. 

As we've learned all this, we've often talked about how useful this information would be for families.  Teepa has done some family programs here but we can never reach everyone and one brief program is not enough for a family that is wrestling with a loved one with dementia.  Now, thanks to a generous gift from The Schriber Family Foundation in memory of Louis and Isabel Schriber, Teepa has authored and Cedar Village has published "The Gems & Dementia, A Guidebook for Care Partners."  This beautiful 95 page book details the various levels of gems; the tools that all of us can use and clear and concrete ways that we can understand-and help.  We'll be holding some special events to introduce the book and make copies available for you so stay tuned!

All the best,  

 carol@cedarvillage.org
www.cedarvillage.org