Interview with The Riverine management, Greg Freeman

The Riverine is the only retirement home specifically in the town of Napanee. It is associated with its parent company, Crown Ridge Healthcare Services, Inc., which operates retirement and long-term care homes in the same general geographic area, ranging from Trenton, Belleville, and Napanee. It is a very small company with experience in other avenues other than retirement, and it is family-owned and operated.

The Riverine is very unique from the other sites in that it is strictly independent and retirement living. It has a very unique mix of independent living and retirement living floors. It is a relatively small building with a total of about 76 rooms or units divided into two distinctly different levels.

One level is the independent level that has full kitchens, so they are more like apartments. The residents have one meal a day that they go to a dining room for, and the social side and the recreational activities are shared between both floors. The retirement living or assisted living level has all the meals and services that would be generally provided in a retirement assisted living home.

Generally it is assistance in medication administration if it is required. It may be assistance with getting in and out of the shower or bathtub if it is required or needed. It may even be just the difficulty in doing up a blouse that somebody requires assistance with in the morning.

The residents are generally very independent. They may need some certain cueing of things or help with knowing what’s happening on a daily basis as far as activities, but generally they are very independent and require just general supervision and social atmosphere.

They are lucky that they are very close to the John Parrott Centre, which is a long-term care home managed by the community municipality. If residents require more care, whether it is mobility, cognitive behaviors, or memory care concerns such as a risk of wandering away from the home, those are times that close supervision helps staff identify those trends and changes.

Those changes would be shared with the family on a continual basis through either care conferences or even a phone call. They would be looking early on at whether somebody needs to have their name placed on a long-term care home list. Those lists are unfortunately lengthy in their geographic area, so the more time that people have to plan for that, the better if that need should arise.

Requests and communication at The Riverine are a little bit different on each level. The retirement level has a residence council that meets monthly, and they do not have to wait until the monthly meeting to discuss ideas with the Life Enrichment coordinator. They are very open to immediately being flexible, changing, and implementing great ideas that come from the residents or the families.

The independent level also has meetings, although they may be semiannual. Again, it is not inflexible. Any day that there is a suggestion, they try to implement it so that you do not have to wait for a general meeting. It really depends on what the mix of residents likes to do, and they are very much about helping them drive their own activities if they wish, like euchre clubs and games. It's really about helping them socialize on their own and helping them make those decisions.

It all depends on what the residents like. It is that medium, slower to medium-paced lifestyle. Because they have the independent level, most of those residents, probably 80 percent, still have their own vehicles. So those who wish to be fast-paced can still maintain that fast-paced lifestyle and have the support within the home that they wish to have. Those who like to do things at their own pace and come out of their apartments when they wish also have that ability.

I have great people in our organization. We're a family-run organization, and we do have other family members also working in the business, who aren’t just my family. Some key managers also have some of their family members working in the company. So it really brings a sense of family and extended family, which we also see the residents and their family members as family, which really drives our mission statement of embracing life’s journey. So that’s kind of the whole focus that we’ve taken with the family-owned business.

At all our sites, we have food committees. We have seasonal menus. We review with the residents through the menu cycle and rotation on likes and dislikes, what they like, well, what would they like to see changed or different? And that’s a continual process that’s not just isolated to one time, and then the menu is fixed. We try to keep that as an evolving cycle throughout the seasonal menu choices.

My office is down from the kitchen, so I smell the food all the time, so I don’t think I have a favorite. But I do like cookies. I like the fresh-baked cookies that come out of the kitchen.

It’s very unique that it’s on the Napanee River. So the building is actually situated on the side of a hill, so from the front it looks like a single story, but from the back it looks like it’s three stories. So it gives it a very unique feel, more rustic and more lodge-like.

It’s close to the town and amenities, but it feels like you’re in the country. It’s less than a block away from the local hospital, so it’s very close to those types of medical amenities. But when you’re in the courtyard at the back of the building, looking at the river, you could be sitting north somewhere at your cottage. So it kind of has that feel.

Generally, people move to The Riverine for the social aspects and atmosphere. And for the independent level they’re still independent, but it’s the security of knowing that they do have a call bell in their rooms by their bed if they should need assistance. It’s the one meal a day, so they can guarantee that nutritional balance, but still gives them the flexibility and freedom of being independent and grocery shopping on their own for the other meals.

When it comes to assisted living, people move to The Riverine for the security. Somebody’s there, taking care of things. Medications can be reviewed. Residents can take their own medications still, with guidance, or we can also administer the medications for them. It’s the security that somebody’s always available to help them, and there are other residents, activities, and a social atmosphere around to help embrace their journey.

Part of the residents’ enjoyment of living at The Riverine really stems from our mission and our focus on our core values, which corporately have the same mission and same values at all our homes, and that’s to embrace life’s journey. And that is for the residents, for the family members, and it also relates to the staff because we’re all living a different journey at the same time, and it ties into how we strive to be family.

We’ve taken our corporate name Crown and come up with five words from that acronym. C stands for being creative, so we seek creative opportunities to enrich life experiences for everyone in our family. R stands for respect. O stands for being outstanding. W is for welcoming. And N is for nurturing. Those are the values that I make sure I’m encompassing for every decision that we make.

That comes from the wellness manager who oversees the care side of things, and the general manager, who's also very involved with the wellness manager in what’s happening on a day-to-day basis, and the life enrichment coordinator, who's looking after the social aspects of the residents and their needs. Those three, along with the dietary department, all work together.

They would have close experiences with the family when they come to visit. Communication starts during the admission process, getting that rapport with the family and with the resident. We make sure that the resident has a really good transition. When they move in, it can be a big change for a lot of people. So we try to make that the best experience that we can, right from the beginning.

The decision to move to a retirement home is very difficult for families. It’s an emotional process for them when they’re looking at that for their loved one. You should visit as many homes in the area you’re looking at as possible. Each one has its own niche, maybe the feel, size. Some people might like a larger size, such as a 125-bed or 200-bed living environment. Others might like the smaller sort of just that smaller feel, just the right size.

So really look at each home, visiting as many as possible to try to find that right fit. We won’t be the right fit for everybody, and that’s why it’s a great opportunity that there are lots of other homes close by for people to choose from. But the ones that we are the right fit for, that’s what we’re here for.

Do your due diligence and look around to find the right place that meets your loved one’s needs. And I guess we believe that when you walk in our door, if it’s the right fit for you, you’ll feel it. So I think that would be probably the best advice I could give, is they’re all professional homes out there, they all have staff that wants to do the best for the residents that reside in those homes, and all have their different unique aspects of doing that, and it’s really just getting that feel.

The way the building is and the land that we have, we don’t have the ability to add on. We would like to. We have a waiting list for our services. So really, we’re looking at enhancements of the existing building, which is now 20 years old, so we’ll be looking at the next few years of modernizing some of the décor and colors. We'll enhance the core features of what's there now, and enhance services based on residents’ needs and what they like to do for social activities.

Visit as many homes as you can because they all have their own uniqueness in their design, the rooms, and the amenities. They can all be very different, and it’s finding that right fit for the lifestyle that the family and the resident want to have for their future. And one size doesn’t fit all. So it is a matter of checking different homes and places out.

There are lots of new opportunities with homes being developed and built. There are lots of opportunities for technology that are coming down the line. But really, it comes down to the home, the team members in that home, and that fit, that feel for the resident. Is this where they feel like they’re home? And that can be different at any site that they may go to and choose.

And really, that’s what we’re here to do, is for those that walk into our doors, if they feel that homey feeling. Our goal is to make our home feel like home right from when you enter. And that starts with people.