My mother lives in an Independent Living facility, and there have been several incidents of condescending and bullying behavior of the director there. He is not a people person, and certainly has no skills speaking with and dealing with the residents there. The majority dislike him, which affects many aspects of living there. My sister has addressed this with staff, and even wrote the corporate office. They just had the director himself deal with it, thus the situation was not dealt with. I contacted the advocate with the Dept. of Aging, however, they cannot help with Independent Living facilities, only Assisted Living ones. My question is, how do we handle this? Does anyone have suggestions on how to handle this? Nobody should have to live with this, especially vulnerable individuals.
The person to manage the facility is frequently not the right person to have contact with residents – they need a completely different skills base. The staff often cope with the limitations on what they can do by blaming the manager – which is actually quite a workable way to interact with residents and their families, but not much fun for the manager.
To make a complaint that is likely to be useful, a couple of things might help. Firstly, see if the job description can separate the Director from direct contact with the residents so far as is possible. It helps to acknowledge the different skill sets involved, and the difficulty of the management job. Secondly, give specific information about incidents that involve several residents, not just your own family member. However it may be best not to identify the other residents involved, or to ask them or their own family members to provide support and corroboration – it is too hard for many people to do, and they are likely to back off.
This is not to deny the fact that the Director may be the problem and may need to go. However some sympathy for the genuine problems may make it more likely that the Board will take it seriously, instead of writing it off as yet another unreasonable complaint.
Among the information about the policy, it should tell you what regulator or professional body or association oversees them. The facility will be accountable to some organisation for various standards, and how they handle complaints will be among those.
If you're not having any luck, let me know and I'll ask you for more information privately.
Who was acting for the Director while he was away?
1. A reiteration of the original complaint.
2. A complaint about the company's egregious handling of 1.
This time, spell out what it is that you want done. What is it that you want done, by the way? Do you want this director fired? Re-trained? Supervised? Or would you be satisfied with an apology and an undertaking to reflect on his approach to interpersonal communication and improve it?
What you certainly want, I imagine, is a direct response from the corporate office to show that they have taken your concerns on board, will address them, and will contact you by [a set time] with a proper reply.
If you have specific examples of bullying or victimisation of elderly and/or vulnerable residents, you can refer those to APS. It's abuse.
How do you yourself get on with the director?
If he/she cannot treat these people with dignity and courtesy it is probably the wrong position for them.
I personally would not want their job, having to much emphasis on the bottom line when dealing with human beings is a warped place to be.
I think if the government wants there fingers in health care, this is where they should start. Non-profits are far superior, focus on care and pay people a living wage instead of making stock holders money. Just my soapbox, sorry🙄
How much contact does your parent have with manager? On what issues? Perhaps someone else can do his?
Speak with other residents and families. Encourage calls to corporate and letters. Maybe one signed by that group.
Be prepared to move if there are options.
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