Interview with Hazelton Place Retirement Residence - Verve Senior Living management, Leslie Westlake

I love coming every day, actually. I’ve been at Hazelton Place for 16 and a half years. I don’t live directly in this area, but I love it here. I love the people that I serve, they’re all my mothers and fathers here.

The staff that I work with is genuinely wonderful: Frontline to management, we’re very open. The other night I had an incident. I had a very quick move-in, and I begged the housekeeper to go up and just do a cleaning because this suite wasn’t quite ready. He kindly took the time out, and worked longer hours in order to make sure it was ready for that person. I love our people, they will go beyond.

I love the area, Yorkville’s great. I love to look out and see the area, the gardens, the galleries, the stores. I don’t get out that often, but it’s a beautiful area.

I love our building itself. It was an office building at one point, but it’s very solid, with concrete floors. We have much larger suites than a lot of the other retirement homes, nice hallways that are nice and wide so people can have a wheelchair or a walker. The doors are really nice and wide as well.

People will come and say, “It’s so warm and lively.” They feel that it exudes warmth and friendliness. When I do tours, people say, “Wow, your staff are so—you know everybody, and everybody knows everybody,” and that is what hits them. They really feel it’s so warm and a caring place.

I used to be in a different field, service-related, but I love people. When the other industry changed to where it was all paperwork and not as many people being involved, I saw an ad with another company. So I went and had an experience there, and I loved it.

When I saw the opportunity 16 and a half years ago to come to Hazelton Place, I spoke to the management here, and they said, “Okay, we’ll try you out.” Then it was really just working with all the people. I was hoping to be a social worker back then, and then I went into business. So, I have a background of both.

The social work aspect, for me, is really true to my heart. Working with people, enjoying them: the empathy aspect, which our company has as one of their main values. 

When a resident stops you for a little thing that upsets them, you can't just say, "Okay, I’m too busy to address it." The empathy comes across from all of our staff. We really want to make sure that residents feel that they’re important, as they are. I love it, and I’m still here. A lot of people who call me now know me from when they weren’t quite ready to move in five years ago, and they say, "Oh, you’re still here. Is that you, Leslie? You’re still there?" Yes, I am.

Hazelton Place is right in the heart of Yorkville. It is near the galleries and the stores. We’re near the hospitals. Unfortunately, it’s a five-minute drive. We’re not right next door to them, but certainly some people, as they become more senior and they have more needs, do like the idea that they’re close to the hospitals. 

We have a wonderful nursing staff here. They’re here 24 hours. We have independent lifestyle and assisted living, and that really helps. So, people can move in without really thinking that they have to move again later. They can incorporate the necessary care that they may require.

Another thing that distinguishes Hazelton Place is the larger suites. We’re service-driven. Our company has won the CQI, which is the Award of Excellence from the government. They’ve won it five times over, and it’s a gold-star recognition for retirement living, and it’s not specific to this industry. So, I’m really proud of that.

Our mission is resident-centric, and it’s to create an environment that is resident-centric for residents or seniors to inspire to a fulfillment, whatever that is, whether it’s spirit, mind, or body. We have all the different programs and whatnot. So, this is what we endeavor to do on an ongoing basis, and we change all the time.

We strive to make sure we incorporate whatever changes are important. We all sit down as a management team, frontline staff, and ask, "What would you suggest that we do to incorporate these changes and more things to what the residents now feel is important?" It changes and evolves.

The big one is COVID. It’s a difficult thing. Our general manager stood up, Mr. Ron Khan, who was our director of care for a number of years before he took on as a general manager. The first day when we all panicked, he calmed everybody’s nerves.

He said, "Listen, we’ve been through this before. There was SARS. There’s always, and there’s going to continue to be pandemics, but we know how to deal with it." So, we’ve implemented the care, all the procedures, everything that we have to do to protect and keep our residents safe.

We had one case in this early spring, and she’s fine now. She’s back to drinking her wine and everything, right? She’s very healthy. But we were able to isolate, treat, and respond. And we had already done this, as Ron had mentioned; we’ve done it, we’ve been there, don’t worry, we can handle this.

We had the nursing, because we do have independent and assisted living, so we had the additional staff that we needed, as well as to incorporate what we would have to do in a case like this. So that was our biggest change.

We’ve adapted to what public health wants us to do, what our accrediting license, the regulatory body that does our licensing, wants us to do. They’ve all created a mandate and protocols for us to follow, and of course we’re following all those.

We also know how important it is for the mental and well-being state of our residents to still be able to have stimulation. We ended up doing some programs and small groups, but now, because Toronto’s a hotspot, we are back to programs in the room.

We’ve got three dedicated, wonderful recreation and life enrichment people. They life enrich because they go up, they stimulate, they do some exercise, they do games with them, and they’re doing this on a daily basis with all of our residents, as well as being able to come down to the dining room.

It’s changed a bit. We don’t have big groups of tables sitting together, and protocol, the face masks and whatnot. But that was our biggest change.

Verve Senior Living, which is our company, had changed their name. It’s still the same company. Forty-three homes in Canada, it’s Canadian. We have 15 out west, and we have 18 in Ontario, and growing.

Verve Senior Living has to change, ongoing, with the development of new homes. They’ve developed memory care floors and certain residences that we have. So, some things are changing all the time, as well as programs.

We’ve got specific programs that are specific to our own homes, like Meet Me at the MoMA, which is an art program. Several programs are very specific to the Verve homes, and we make sure all the staff are trained. These are things that again engage and stimulate the residents.

We have a wonderful bistro, which allows the residents to be less restricted. They don’t like restrictions, let’s face it. They don’t like rules and regulations that much, but the bistro allows them the freedom of coming 11:30 through till 8:00 in our dining.

If they’re out shopping in the morning and they get back, they don’t have to worry that, oh, I missed my seating. They can still go and get a cheeseburger or a poached salmon or a steak. All of these things are on our bistro menu. So again, that was a change that we incorporated as all of the Verve homes, and our residents really enjoy that.

I like food, and I’m telling you, our chef is wonderful. He creates all kinds of special dishes. He’ll spend the time with a new resident to make sure he incorporates any particular necessities. Naturally, we cater to vegetarian, gluten-free. Gluten-free is a little trickier, but we do it.

When we’ve had Greek people move in, we’ve got a couple of people who try their best to incorporate some of those dishes for them. Food is really important. We have a food meeting every month so that people can bring to the table, “Hey, I’d like to try such and such.”

We actually added a hot dog, a nice big one, the big juicy beef ones, because the residents wanted it like once a month. Something special like that is resident-driven. We’re resident-centric, bringing to them what they wish to have and what they feel comfortable with and enjoy. 

Food is one of the big things at Hazelton Place. We do have normal dining times, meaning specific times, and that’s when we offer our three entrees. But then they can always have that alternative menu, which has lovely things such as the steak, the poached salmon, and grilled cheese, which is a favorite.

We have sweet potato fries. A lot of people really like those. And we have the healthy things, lots of salads. We have lovely desserts. We always feature one, but they can always have the healthy, fresh fruit sliced or in a bowl. They can have their ice creams. They can have their diabetic cookies or ice creams, diabetic as well. So we cater to people.

We love all the social events. I always like the celebrations. Because we have a very diverse population, sometimes they want to celebrate some of their own special cultural or religious. So we have Christian, and we have Jewish clientele, and so we try to adapt. Decorations at the holiday season, we do that. We cater, sometimes, for special occasions like the New Year and Hanukkah. We light the menorah candle with the residents. So, we do add special services, but we try to create different seasonal fun things all the time.

We brainstorm as management. "What can we do to make it fun?" And directives come from Verve as well, because they’re speaking as a group, and they know what has been really popular.

If we work as a team, not just within Hazelton Place, but having Verve Senior Living and all the management in the other homes, they bring on wonderful ideas. We talk together with our marketing group. We discuss what’s been really good and what the residents really enjoy doing. 

The culture and lifestyle at Hazelton Place are varied. Some people like to be doing everything. They want involvement. We have a resident-driven event once a week, where we have wonderful speakers coming in. Then we have our own programs, of course. We have independent residents. We have about four residents who still take U of T courses. So, that’s a lifestyle they did not want to give up. We don’t want them to give up some of those things that they really enjoy.

We have residents who come into the residence and are involved with what we can offer.

In assisted living, when new people come in, the residents are on a separate floor where there’s more staff, there’s a nursing station, there’s a lounge. They have separate programs for those residents as well to keep them engaged because they’re not out and about as much.

If somebody comes to Hazelton Place and they have more care needs, we’re able to provide that. We have 24-hour nursing in the building, and we have a family doctor who visits once a week. We have other specialists, a foot doctor, a denturist, an audiologist. So it’s all sort of self-contained.

We have wonderful gardens here too. So, a lot of our residents love the gardens. They are wonderful. They’re beautiful.

We have bees. We were up to three beehives. We have been cultivating them and harvesting them, and we actually had a number of jars that we produced to give to our residents. And we’ve been cooking with the production of our honey.

Through resident general meetings, they’ve talked about things that are important to them, and a lot of times it’s conservation, it’s caring about the environment. We enacted this about four years ago, and had the beekeepers. They do all the major work and make sure they’re healthy, but we’ve been growing the amount of honey that we’ve been producing.

Some residents wish to go out, and we want them to enjoy the neighborhood. That’s what we’re here for. They can have their meals here, they can enjoy and do what they enjoy doing. It’s to fulfill what they normally like to do.

If somebody is aggressive or abusive and we’re not able to have a change where they could live in a community, then we would not keep them. That’s basically the only thing that we really are not able, if we can’t manage their care because we are in a community setting. 

Where someone has frailties that are just physical, then they can still be perhaps in or on the assisted living floor because there is more care incorporated. Sometimes they may have their own caregiver with them during the day if it gets to the point where they have greater needs. 

Some people wish to leave us to go to a long-term care or move north. Right now, some family members are moving out of the city, so some of the people, and they’re sad to leave us, may be going to an out-of-town area to be closer to their family.

We’re able to accommodate most people thanks to the continuum of care that we have. Our nursing team, our health and wellness manager, will meet with our families and with the resident to ensure that they know exactly what is required. 

If there is a concern, then she talks, and we discuss it. Certainly, we also have a connection with the LHIN, or with discussing for long-term care if somebody wishes. So, we will help them in that regard at Hazelton Place.

Hazelton Place communicates with email. Almost all of our residents’ family members are on our email list. Residents often have another communication, too. They can get emails, but every memo that goes out to the residents, we also send it to the family members.

People on our mailing list or who wish to be involved with Hazelton Place, we also still communicate with them. I’m sending out little newsletters and wishing them well, and they’re all phoning and saying, “Don’t we have the Christmas party this year?”

Families can also phone anytime. We’re very open-door policy. Our general manager, Ron, and Tatiana, our assistant general manager, are on the phone all the time with different residents or their family members. We want people to communicate with us, and then they get back to them.

There are like 10 that automatically flood to mind. It changes so much.

Two people moved in this week, and they are so sweet, and I’ve been dealing with the family. Then there’s a man who passed away last week, and the family members said, “Oh my gosh, you guys were so good.”

All of these people, who maybe people don’t want to move at first, you take them through the process. Whether you meet them, you go to their home, and you make them feel a lot more comfortable. All of us, when they move in, it’s so important to bring them on board and make sure and to help them become engaged. Sometimes, people with a bit of cognition failure, meaning a little dementia, may not totally understand. That’s why it’s important to keep visiting, keep the communication open, and make sure that they have that stimulation, whether they remember or not.

I have a lot of great memories of residents here. A lot of them are my mothers and fathers. I try and go into the dining room and talk to people and say hi and how you doing, and they really love that. I do have people who are so important to me, but there’s a number of them, because I have been at Hazelton Place for 16 and a half years.

Verve Senior Living is always looking to see what it can do as far as any change, because we’re used to adapting. This is what we do, and this is what Verve does all the time. We're expanding, and always looking to incorporate some of the changes that are happening in retirement lifestyle.

As I mentioned, they have the memory floors. They have a home out west where they’ve incorporated special homes where they incorporate living within that home and cooking together as a group. It’s very much centred on dementia care. Anything that’s changing in the environment, which there has been a major change in the environment with more seniors needing more care and the elderly residents coming to the retirement homes now.

We do have a few young bloods here due to care that they may need from nursing or whatever. But the average age has gone up over the last few years. I remember when I was first at Hazelton Place, it was low 80s, sometimes 70s. Now it’s older, but they’re still doing really well. They’ve been able to stay in their home longer.

The next influx of residents, meaning not the people today, but the younger generation, is going to be more demanding. I know our company knows that. They expect it, and so they’re looking beyond to see what we can do to allow people to have those expectations granted, and incorporating what the baby boomers will want, because that’s going to be key. 

At this very second [late in the COVID-19 pandemic - ed.], they can’t really do tours as per se, but they can get a sense. They can do FaceTime. They can do the videos. We’ve gone to a person’s home and played a little video if it’s for a senior that needs to see something. We’ll wear the proper PPEs. Generally speaking, the person or the family members have to feel comfortable.

People have to visit the home. They have to be able to feel the warmth. They have to see the premises. A lot of times people really like us because we’ve renovated in the last couple of years our whole back area. This lounge was always here, but we incorporated a lighter colour and new furniture. So, the residents love it. #Building #Decision

Our back gardens, they love the gardens. This year we put all these wonderful, fascinating lighting decorations for the holiday season. We haven’t really done that before, but again, we want to do it because they’re at home more now. #Building #Social

Some of our core values are integrity and passion for excellence. Another is working as a team. Collaboration is really, really key for all of us. That’s part of our core value system that Verve has, as well as the empathy for residents by staff.

It's important to make sure you maintain your staff. Our staff stay with us forever. I love it because I feel very comfortable with them. They’re my family. Residents feel we are the family. Our housekeeping, our nurses, a lot of them have been here for 17, 18 years. 

When you tour, you get a sense, and that will help you make a decision. Do you go to the next step and ask for more information?

Can you talk to the nurse if that’s a real concern (meaning the care aspect of it)? Talk to dining staff if food is a problem. Talk to life enrichment - which are the recreation programs -  if that’s a concern. You have to be an advocate for yourself and for your parent, if it’s your parent, or for yourself, and just make sure you feel comfortable.

The comfort level is really key, because if you know that the comfort level’s there, you’ll know that when you arrive at Hazelton Place, the same welcoming is going to be standard across all the staff, and that is key.