The Now What? Workshop

How to onboard your families the RIGHT way
so you can dial down the drama
and get the trust and respect you deserve

I can show you how.

How to onboard your families the RIGHT way so you can dial down the drama and get the trust and respect you deserve

I can show you how.

deborah Bakti

Your team works hard, provides a much needed service, and cares for your residents, so you want the trust, kudos, validation, and RESPECT that should go along with that (sounds lovely, doesn’t it?)

  • But difficult families (who often seem motivated to find something wrong) make that impossible. Not to mention, bad press, and the every-so-often LTC “horror story” in the news (which only got worse with COVID) also does damage to your industry’s reputation.

  • You’d appreciate nicer, easier personalities entering your home from the get-go, so you can avoid the pain and expense of dealing with complaints to your corporate office - or worse, the Ministry/Health Authority - But your staff is already slammed and stretched-thin on admission day.
  • All you can really do is go through the motions,and hope for the best.
  • So while it would be wonderful to be more accommodating and to meet the demands of each family, you lack the resources, so you’re instantly set up to fail in the eyes of the very people you exist to help.
  • That’s why white-knuckling through admission (and the rest of your residents’ stay) and playing defense enough to stay out of trouble is nothing but a long term plan to work on eggshells…

    and never a strategy to completely get off of them for good.
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Sherri

"We were very happy with the successful outcome of our first national webinar with Author and Speaker, Deborah Bakti. Her knowledge and expertise about Senior Living and Senior’s Care elevated the experience and value we were able to provide our prospects and families. Her personal and professional insights on the subject brought real life empathy to the event. We received great feedback not only from families and prospects but also our team members in the organization. We would not hesitate to collaborate with Deborah again."

Sheri Brown, Verve Senior Living, Regional Director of Sales & Marketing, Western Canada

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To have a harmonious, cooperative, and happy environment for your staff, residents, and families to be in, you have to accept that – Difficult family members rarely get less difficult with time. 

And the damage these poor relationships inflict on company culture and morale ISN’T the inevitable cost of doing business in senior care….

it’s the undeniable consequences of being unaware of just how much power you actually have.

Frustration, annoyance, defensiveness, reactivity, and hopelessness.

These are the feelings of powerlessness.

 

But the great irony here is that power always lies with those who have the most behind-the-scenes knowledge and understand the lay of the land.  

You, as leaders and care team members in senior’s care have the power to:

Educate

Educate families with what you know on Day ONE

Influence

Influence their moods with your presence

Guide

Guide them through a difficult situation with your understanding of their heartbreak

The LAST place anyone wants to live or anyone wants to leave their loved one is in a long term care home. That’s WHY when you have a storm of activity on your end and a storm of assumptions and emotions walking through your doors on the other,

 

it’s CRUCIAL that your team learns to control the weather.

 

This is a HUGE Super Power.
And your home will benefit tremendously from using it.

Introducing

Now What?

The 90 minute Interactive Workshop that puts you and your team back in the Captain’s chair, so you can elegantly take control of Admission Day, successfully guide your families, keep your power (and empathy) intact, and completely change the dynamic between your organization and residents’ family members.

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"I highly recommend every home and placement team invests in the Now What? program to support their families and their care teams with this extremely important relationship in your home and communities. The “Now What?” program came at a perfect time for my region’s homes, as a way to offer our new and current families more knowledge and insight about this emotional journey they’ve been thrown into."

Kim Mercier, Regional Director, Extendicare Canada Inc.

Here’s what the program includes

A 90 minute interactive workshop

Designed to completely change your mindset, and give you actionable steps to initiate NOW, so work immediately feels different and much more sane.

Six months of weekly Now What Matters emails

Packed with additional resources and ideas, so you’re honing the program and implementing new skills with your staff and families.

A 45 minute coaching call with me

6-8 weeks after your workshop to share what’s working, ask questions, and get follow up feedback.

Discounts

Save when you order a case of 42 or more to distribute to your employees AND families.

"The ‘Now What?’ program was a highly informative and interesting webinar. Attendance for this was one of the best we’ve had, and we received terrific feedback from our members who attended. The topic was relevant about how to strengthen relationships with our residents’ families and create better outcomes for everyone. Deborah is an amazing speaker, and we really appreciated her presentation and would love to do another! "

Nicole Neuert, Administration Officer, EPS

BONUS MATERIALS INCLUDE:

The Now What? Book Club Kit

Which includes a powerpoint deck for teaching others, participant AND facilitator guides so everyone knows what to do, and invitations/posters to help promote your book club events.

Discount pricing

On eBook and Audiobook formats.

Access to Deborah

To join a Family Council or Town Hall meeting to share more about the Now What? book

“Thank you to Deborah for providing our leadership team with an inspiring workshop. We have been using her books and tools to support residents and families as they are transitioning into long term care. Her real life experience is invaluable which helps support the key principles in the material. We are starting book clubs in our homes using the books to further support our families.”

Kim Eros, Associate Director Clinical and Support Services, Seniors Services, Community Services, Niagara Region

Here’s what you’ll learn how to do

Take the lead

So you can be the guide your families need (and not the victim of their anger, which is essentially their overwhelming grief), no matter how short-staffed or busy you are.

Change the narrative

(i.e., challenge assumptions) by providing families with information that give them insight and knowledge up front.

Build two-way empathy

With families through curiosity and conversation, so that you’re communicating with, not avoiding, each other. 

Clarify, manage and adjust expectations

So you’re overriding disappointment and getting ahead of complaints.

Provide resources

To your care team members so they can better relate to and engage with families in a healthier way -- this helps them take ownership of their job. 

Create shared understanding and language

To improve communications.

Shape an entirely new culture at your home

Where staff is empowered and able to work drama-free. And where families are informed and handled with care.

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“Deb has the ability to connect with an audience through shared experiences with all who she is speaking with. I really enjoyed how she shared examples from both sides of her journey, both for families and for employees in the long term care sector and how both have shared anxieties about the process. She also tells it like it is, which is refreshing and gives both teams and families the ammunition to ask the right questions and put themselves in each others’ shoes. She is a wonderful storyteller who inspired my team!”

Brad Bushby, VP Sales and Marketing, Schlegel Villages

“I had the pleasure of attending a session. This was a great opportunity to refocus our thoughts and energy on getting back to having visitors in our homes after the first wave of the Covid-19 Pandemic. It’s also an important exercise to help providers work with families that can be considered difficult, and how to better onboard new residents and loved ones. Deb is a wonderful facilitator who has lived both sides and the care equation; as a family member and as a contracted care provider. I would recommend Deb Bakti and this program for your organization.”

Michael Bittante, Regional Director, Extendicare, Southern Alberta.

Join the workshop that condenses over a decade of professional (and personal) knowledge of LTC organizations into 90 minutes of perspective-shifting ideas, complete with presentation, education, and facilitation materials, so you can reach as many people as possible in your organization.

Just because your industry includes a lot of delicate circumstances doesn’t mean you’re stuck in damage control, waiting for something to break.

Here’s that button again to join the workshop.
Let’s make your organization better today.

Now What? Book Testimonials

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“The book “Now What, Managing the Emotional Journey of Long Term Care for Families” and workshop came to us at a critical time during the pandemic. Families were getting anxious and anyone who was admitting a loved one during this time was coming into our home which wasn’t operating normally due to restrictions.

I realized this book could be a tool that I could use with my new families to give them a better understanding of “life in LTC” and I decided that going forward I would hand them out on admission.

I truly feel that everyone living in or making plans to move into LTC needs to read this book and attend the workshop. It’s a real and honest look into the day to day happenings in a LTC facility”

Sandie Lowe

Administrator Extendicare Mayerthorpe
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“As a family member, I’ve been navigating long term care for nine years. I recently read ‘Now What?’, and I wish I had been able to read this book at that time. This is a phenomenal guide for managing the emotional journey. Thank you for helping me diminish the guilt and for providing me, and my family the tools for understanding! This book also explains how the system works. Deborah has personal knowledge of the process that - as family members - is invaluable for our journey through “the most difficult thing” we will ever do for our loved one. ‘Now What?’ is an excellent bridge between ‘our’ home, to ‘their’ new home.”

P. Fontaine

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"Now What?” is the go-to guide that helped me navigate the new waters of being a caregiver to a resident in long term care. It offers heartwarming stories, sage advice, and practical tips in an easy-to-read format. Every family of a new resident would benefit from this book, which bridges the relationship between the home’s staff and family members. ‘Now What?’ was my beacon of light as it guided me in a new understanding of not only what I was going through, but what the staff were experiencing."

Caralyn Shantz

Family member of long term care