Harbourview Lodge Continuing Care Centre adopts elder-directed approach to care, earning the renowned Eden Alternative designation
The garden pictured outside of Harbourview Lodge Continuing Care Centre.
By Jane Landry
On June 1, 2021 Harbourview Lodge Continuing Care Centre in Sheet Harbour earned the Eden Alternative designation for their successful efforts in shifting traditional approaches to care to an elder-directed alternative.
Harbourview Lodge Continuing Care Centre was the first long-term care home in Nova Scotia to receive the Eden Alternative Level 4 designation.
This approach to care helps the care partners (staff, family and community) create an environment and culture that feels more like home to the elders that live at Harbourview Lodge Continuing Care Centre. Elders can be themselves, have their own routines and make decisions. The Eden Alternative is an international non-profit that aims to combat the three plagues of suffering for elders: loneliness, boredom and helplessness.
Eden Alternative principles and practices focus on putting the elder first and placing the maximum decision-making authority in the hands of the elder and their care team, known as care partners.
The Eden Alternative has ten principles, including:
- The three plagues of loneliness, boredom and helplessness account for the bulk of suffering among our elders.
- An elder-directed community commits to creating a human habitat where life revolves around close and continuing contact with people of all ages and abilities, as well as plants and animals. It is these relationships that provide the young and old alike with a pathway to a life worth living.
- Loving companionship is the antidote to loneliness. Elders deserve easy access to human and animal companionship.
- An elder-directed community creates opportunity to give as well as receive care. This is the antidote to helplessness.
- An elder-directed community imbues daily life with variety and spontaneity by creating an environment in which unexpected and unpredictable interactions and happenings can take place. This is the antidote to boredom.
- Meaningless activity corrodes human spirit. The opportunity to do things that we find meaningful is essential to human health.
- Medical treatment should be the servient of genuine human caring, never its master.
- An elder-directed community honours its elders by de-emphasizing top-down, bureaucratic authority, seeking instead to place the maximum possible decision-making authority into the hands of the elders or into the hands of those closest to them.
- Creating an elder-directed community is a never-ending process. Human growth must never be separated from human life.
- Wise leadership is the lifeblood of any struggle against the three plagues. For it, there can be no substitute.
After successful completion of the 29 Eden Alternative modules and four major program milestones, Harbourview Lodge Continuing Care Centre joins a community of other long-term and special care homes around the world who have challenged the traditional approach to care to earn the Eden Alternative designation.
“It is learning how to think differently, and the Eden Alternative brings everything down to choice,” said Roberta Duchesne, director of community and rural sites.
“There are structured activities and programs made available, but elders can choose not to participate or to participate only to the extent they wish,” said Amy Donnelly, CEO at Harbourview Lodge Continuing Care Centre.
Since adopting the Eden Alternative philosophy, Harbourview Lodge Continuing Care Centre has had fewer family complaints. Care partners who went through the Eden Alternative training gained a deepened understanding of how their way of working with each other impacts the elders.
New hires at Harbourview Lodge Continuing Care Centre are now trained in the Eden Alternative from day one.
Additionally, care plans now reflect the Eden Alternative philosophy. At Harbourview Lodge Continuing Care Centre, a pre-primary class visits the elders, the home’s recreational therapist grows potted plants for the elders to watch grow and look after, and pets are welcome – with three cats around the home for everyone to enjoy as well as fish and dogs that visit.
In 2014, Harbourview Lodge Continuing Care Centre began the Eden Alternative process of accreditation by training staff on the Eden Alternative principles and practices. As more care partners got trained, along with the board chair and vice chair, the culture began to shift towards an elder-directed approach to care.
Pivotal to the Eden Alternative process was Cathy Logan, clinical supervisor, now retired, who was a trailblazer in introducing, initiating, and implementing the Eden Alternative philosophy at Harbourview Lodge Continuing Care Centre.
But the work does not stop with the official Eden Alternative designation – in fact it is just beginning.
“We will meet with the Eden Registry every year going forward and defend why Harbourview Lodge Continuing Care Centre should keep our Eden Alternative accreditation,” said Duchesne. “We will be continually growing, learning and shifting to meet all the principles and practices of the Eden Alternative.”
“We remain focused on practicing and promoting the Eden Alternative philosophy with our elders, their families, and staff,” said Donnelly. We are very proud of Harbourview Lodge Continuing Care Centre for their tremendous achievement in earning the Eden Alternative designation. Thank you to the care partners and all who are involved in practicing and promoting elder-directed care.
Learn more about the Eden Alternative here: The Eden Registry - The Eden Alternative
