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Workshops
Returning this year!
These five workshops will provide a deep dive into their topics and valuable resources to take back to your team and community. Plus, connect with your Affinity Groups (peer networks) through these experiential learning opportunities.CEUs are available for all five sessions!
"Strengthening Bonds Through Intentional Conversations " with Kiera DesChamps and Beth Southorn
Wednesday, June 11 | 12:30 – 2:45 PM
In a world rich with diversity, creating meaningful connections requires courage, openness, and intentionality. This interactive workshop invites participants to explore the power of storytelling and authentic dialogue to foster understanding, empathy, and unity. Through guided activities, reflective discussions, and shared experiences with conscience and deliberate intentionality, participants will learn how to navigate discomfort, celebrate differences, and create safe spaces for transformative conversations. Together, we’ll honor the value of every story and build bridges that strengthen our personal and professional relationships.
Hosted by the Leaders of Color network
"Experiencing Innovation: Changing the Way We Age" With Garry Pezzano, Doug Leidig, Joseph Duffy, and Steve Lindsey
Wednesday, June 11 | 3:00 PM – 5:15 PM
Join us for a workshop where participants will experience firsthand innovations shaping the way we age!
This session features a panel of industry leaders who are driving change through investments in age-tech solutions. Panelists will explore core principles essential to successful innovation: affordability, adaptability, and adoption. Doug Leidig, CEO of Asbury, will share insights into his organization’s Age Tech Collaborative with AARP and the Smart Senior Living partnership with Integrated Technologies.
Participants will then engage in an experiential exercise, exploring innovative solution designs through demonstrations.
Hosted by the IT Affinity Group (peer network)
"Authentic Leadership: Building a Culture That Starts With You" with Ben Meyers
Thursday, June 12 | 12:30 PM – 2:45 PM
In the senior living industry, leadership stress and employee burnout can significantly impact organizational performance, workplace culture, and resident care quality. This two-hour interactive workshop is designed to help senior living executives develop practical strategies to prioritize their own mental health while fostering a supportive environment for their teams. By addressing both personal and team well-being, leaders can improve employee retention, strengthen workplace culture, and ultimately enhance profitability and operational success.
Participants will explore evidence-based approaches to managing anxiety, supporting staff mental health, and implementing sustainable leadership practices that meet the growing challenges of the senior living industry.
Hosted by the Wellness and Fitness Affinity Group (peer network)
"Transforming Conflict to Opportunity " with Alisa Miller, Anne Marie Williams, and Heather Plunkett
Thursday, June 12 | 3:00 PM – 5:15 PM
This interactive session will help participants harness the power of conflict by transforming destructive behavior into productive responses. By discussing the uncomfortable and unavoidable challenges of workplace conflict, this session combines behavioral theory with self-awareness for a deep dive into conflict. By utilizing Everything DiSC®, a premier personal development learning tool that helps participants better understand themselves and others, participants will be empowered to work better together. Everything DiSC® is powered by almost 50 years of research and ignites organizations to move towards cultural transformation.
Utilizing videos and both small and large group activities, this personalized learning experience is designed to increase self-awareness around conflict behaviors and give participants tangible take aways to implement into their everyday life.
This session will discuss how to manage responses in conflict situations and explore personalized communication strategies to use when engaging in productive conflict with colleagues. It will help participants both improve self-awareness around conflict behaviors and seek to understand others’ behaviors around conflict. Rather than focus on a step-by-step process for conflict resolution, participants will be provided with techniques to curb destructive behaviors and effectively respond in conflict situations. Participants will explore DiSC® specifically in a conflict context, providing an opportunity for participants to explore their destructive conflict responses while offering them a method for making more productive choices in their response to conflict.
The first module will begin with an in-depth exploration of the four DiSC® styles, followed by an examination of how these styles influence both individual and interpersonal conflict behaviors. Module two will unpack how automatic thoughts impact conflict behaviors and the thoughts and behaviors that are typical for each DiSC® style. The session concludes with Module three which will explore how to recognize destructive thoughts and reframe them to lead to more productive behaviors. Participants will have an opportunity to practice reframing thoughts and create an action plan for themselves moving forward.
Up to 30 participants will have the opportunity to receive a FREE access code to complete the Everything DiSC® Productive Conflict assessment!
Hosted by the Human Resources Affinity Group (peer network)
"Reshaping the Paradigm for How We View, Experience, and Embrace Dementia " with Lauren Renehan
Friday, June 13 | 8:30 AM – 10:45 AM
Through a guided exercise, participants will unpack their biases and assumptions about dementia, memory care environments, and associated stigmas. After confronting these assumptions and contrasting them with reality, participants will be challenged to identify how stigma and societal norms have fueled the traditional model of healthcare and created barriers to care. Participants will be asked to reflect on their experiences within their organizations, graph their perceived barriers to care, and rank their perceived challenges in overcoming these barriers. Current issues in the senior living industry, such as staffing shortages, will be highlighted and validated by statistical data and expressed narratives. Juxtaposing the traditional model, participants will be presented with a plan for a new memory center being constructed at Willow Valley Communities.
The plan for this new dementia village employs a social model for care and reflects elements that have been successfully demonstrated in Europe. Critical components for operating from this habilitative perspective include small households, unique staffing ratios, neighborhoods with identities, familiar destinations, and intentionally designed architecture with built-in wayfinding clues. A dementia-friendly restaurant, a grocery store, a meditation space, a salon, therapeutic courtyards, and a prominent Town Center will inspire participants to consider their capacity for implementing an adaptation to their current offerings or environment. Additionally, participants will learn about the programmatic features and amenities that will be made available to the public, and will be informed of the rationale for incorporating these supportive services. Services to be highlighted include Adult Day Programming, a clinical assessment center, a brain tech center, a brain cafe, and a resource center. Incorporated into this conversation will be an overview of how existing community systems are working in harmony to support the initiatives of this memory center and to advance the mission for other providers in the industry.
Post dialogue, participants will be able to summarize the various elements of the memory center, and how they will be integrated within the dementia village. Participants will be given time to revisit their biases, understanding of stigma and barriers, and ranked challenges. Applying their new knowledge of alternative approaches in memory care, participants will be given the opportunity to re-rank their perceived barriers and challenges. They will relate what they have learned to their own organizations, devising blue-sky plans through brief brainstorming, mapping a web of potential partners to aid in the execution of possible interventions, and designing a first-draft plan (short, mid, and long-term goals) for addressing and overcoming some of these challenges.
Hosted by the NHA Affinity Group (peer network)
