OUR LUANA JOURNEY: Certified Eden Associate Graduates

Congratulations to twenty-one members of our staff ranging from Administrators and Senior CNAs to Activities Assistants and a Maintenance & Engineering Supervisor attended a three day Certified Eden Associate Training last week. Eden Alternative Community Builder, Denise Hyde, lead the training session focusing on team building and the Eden Alternative Principles:

Problem Statement
The three plagues of loneliness, helplessness and boredom account for the bulk of suffering among our Elders.

Solution
An Elder-centered community commits to creating a Human Habitat where life revolves around close and continuing contact with plants, animals and children. It is these relationships that provide the young and old alike with a pathway to a life worth living.

Antidotes

Loving companionship is the antidote to loneliness. Elders deserve easy access to human and animal companionship.
An Elder-centered community creates opportunity to give as well as receive care. This is the antidote to helplessness.
An Elder-centered 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.

Practice

Meaningless activity corrodes the human spirit. The opportunity to do things that we find meaningful is essential to human health.
Medical treatment should be the servant of genuine human caring, never its master.
An Elder-centered community honors 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.

Drivers

Creating an Elder-centered 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.