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Election 2025: Support Long-Term Care!

The Hover Green House, copied with permission

CARP Advocacy Working Group on Long-term Care continues to advocate to greatly improve the life of residents living in Long Term Care by changing long-term care homes from ‘institutions to homes’.   We invite your support by calling or emailing your Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) to seek their position on the urgently needed change in Long Term Care and ask, if they are elected on February 27th, 2025, will the candidate work to make this a reality.

The Question:

Whereas:         Ontario’s Long-term Care COVID-19 Commission recommended that the Ontario government promote and fund long-term care homes that change to recognized, emotion-based models of care;

Whereas:         Ontario’s Long-term Care COVID-19 Commission recommended creating smaller-self-contained home-like units within existing and new homes;

Whereas:         The National Institute on Aging (NIA) is calling on all levels of government to invest in small care homes;

Whereas:         The Ontario Ministry is embarking on a pilot project to fund emotion-based training in 15 LTC homes.

Will you promote the transformation of LTC homes from institutions to homes, and provide the necessary funding for small care homes that embrace warm, compassionate places where residents can truly live, and staff are valued?

For more information or questions please see our webpage www.changeltcnow.ca

or contact one of the members of the CARP Advocacy Working Group on Long-term Care:
Carol Dueck: carol.dueck@gmail.com;
Vicki Iler: victoriailer96@gmail.com;
Barbara Schulman: bschulman@rogers.com

We look forward to hearing from you!

 

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‘Turn Institutions Into Real Homes’

 

A Green House Dining Room (copied with permission)

In late January 2025,  CARP Ottawa submitted a letter to the editor, the Ottawa Citizen on the need to fix Ontario’s long-term care home system.  Below is the letter to the editor, published on February 1st, 2025.

“I would like to commend Lise Cloutier-Steele for her article on Ontario’s long-neglected long-term care home system. The CARP Advocacy Working Group on Long-term Care has long advocated for transforming long-term care homes from “institutions to homes.” We cannot emphasize enough that the time to change long-term care is now.

There are innovative models of care in Ontario and around the world that have transitioned from “institutions to homes” with reported better outcomes, including significant improvement in staff recruitment and retention. Yes, we need more long-term care beds, but they must come with the essential ingredient common to these innovative models: an emotion-based approach to care that fosters warm, compassionate, homelike places where residents can truly live, and staff are truly valued.

Please add CARP’S Advocacy Working Group to Ms. Cloutier-Steele’s list of organizations advocating to fix the long-term care system. Visit www. changeltcnow.ca, become a follower, and join us in our quest to see this change become a reality. It cannot happen soon enough.

 

 

 

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Why is Ontario still building large institutional-style LTC Homes?

Smaller nursing homes are cropping up across Canada. While experts say they are better for residents and staff, why is Ontario going another route? Moira Welsh, Staff Reporter, Toronto Star, Jan 24, 2025 (Read more here)

In the article, Moira Welsh was referencing the latest report from the National Institute on Ageing, “There is No Place Like Home”  (see previous blog)

In December, the Ontario government announced plans to fund training of home staff in the practice of emotion-focused care, which aims to create better understanding and connections with residents living with dementia.

Dr. Sinha with National Institute on Ageing said emotion-focused care would have greater success in small households that do not resemble hospitals. And, he added, it’s not just residents who prefer it: Workers do, too. “The best way to achieve (the emotion-centered approach) is actually by building and appropriately staffing small home settings, because that’s where you really, really see this sort of care come alive.”

Please join us in our advocacy efforts to transform Ontario’s long-term care homes from ‘institutions to homes’ by contacting your MPP and/or city councillor, writing a letter to the editor, etc to make this transformation happen.

 

 

 

 

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Recording: Champions for change: From Institutions to Homes

On January 15th, 119 persons registered for the webinar, “Champions for Change: From Institutions to Homes”, and they learned about  the advocacy work that is being done by the CARP Advocacy Working Group on LTC.  The importance of changing from “institutions to homes’ was highlighted,  as well as what this change looks like and how participants can help make this happen. Donna Hicks, a caregiver and volunteer at the Glebe Centre in Ottawa, discussed her experience with both the “institutional model” versus the Butterfly model”.

The full webinar can be viewed here.

 

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‘There’s No Place Like Home’

A Green House Dining Room (copied with permission)

The National Institute on Aging released its recent report, “There’s No Place Like Home: Why Canada Must Prioritize Small Care Home Models in its Provision of Long-Term Care”.

“This report, There’s No Place Like Home, emphasizes the need for a transformative shift away from delivering care in large institutional care settings to smaller, more personalized, home-like environments that align with public preferences and improve care outcomes for residents and working conditions for staff. ”

Please join us in our advocacy efforts to transform Ontario’s long-term care homes from ‘institutions to homes’ by contacting your MPP and/or city councillor, writing a letter to the editor, etc to make this transformation happen.

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Ontario gives green light to training staff in emotion-based care models

Photo courtesy of Jarlette Health Services

Dear Minister Kusendova,

On behalf of CARP’s Advocacy Working Group on Long Term Care, we are writing to you today to express our congratulations on the work you are doing to improve the care for residents in Ontario’s Long Term Care Homes (LTCH). Your recent announcement of investing $9 million over three years to train staff in emotion-based care models is groundbreaking and demonstrates the commitment of the government to improve the quality of life for those both living and working in long-term care!

We know how critical well planned and successfully executed training has been in the implementation of innovative models of care such as the Eden Alternative, the Green House Project and the Butterfly Approach. We believe that this funding, focusing on emotion-based training, will help to create and enhance the culture of care in all long-term care homes. Drawing on existing expertise from leaders in this field who have already developed training programs for innovative models of care in Ontario will ensure a framework that incorporates sustainability measures providing positive outcomes for years to come.

Again, our congratulations and best wishes as you continue the work to improve the care of residents and their families in Ontario’s LTCHs as well as the working life of those who provide care and support to them.

Yours sincerely,
Kathy Wright
Chair, CARP Advocacy Working Group on Long-term Care   www.changeltcnow.ca

Margaret Geare, Social Action Committee, Chair RWTO (Retired Women’s Teachers Ontario)
Gwen Kavanagh, Chair, CARP Barrie and Surrounding Area
Murray Etherington, Chair, CARP Mississauga
Gay Viecelli, Chair, Long-term Care Transformation Committee, CARP Windsor Essex
Tom Carrothers, Chair, CARP Halton
Louise Warr, Chair, CARP Greater Bay of Quinte Area
Gloria McKibbin, Chair, CARP London-St. Thomas

 

 

 

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Recording: Creating Joyful LTC Homes: The Ireland Experience

On November 13th, 100 persons registered for the webinar, “Creating Joyful LTC Homes: The Ireland Experience”, and they learned about  the transformation which is taking place within Ireland LTC Homes. After researching innovative models of care around the world, they have transformed three LTC Homes where residents are living in “homes”. Currently the Irish Government are developing a Design Guide for LTC Residential Care Settings where small household settings will be the norm.

The full webinar can be viewed here.

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Former Minister gives nod to innovative homes

In her recent book, A Physician in the Political Arena, Dr. Merrilee Fullerton

lays out her vision of what she had hoped for in reforming the long-term care home system in Ontario. Read more: 

In Chapter 3 she writes, in part:

“Residents would have a dignified environment to live in.  Physical, emotional and medical needs should be met…”

…”This underlines the importance of programs such as the Butterfly Model and the Eden Alternative Model that provide a more home-like setting with greater emphasis on emotional needs.”

Dr. Fullerton clearly saw the benefit of these innovative models of care that transformed their ‘institutions to homes’.   Although at a snail’s pace, the numbers of these ‘homes’, in both the public and private sector in Ontario, continue to grow each year.    We need to do more.

Click here  to get involved.  A draft letter is there for you to edit or send to your  MPP or your local media.  If we don’t begin to fix the long-term care system now, the residents will be forgotten yet again until another pandemic hits.

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Recording: Social Connection and Quality of Life

On September 18th, nearly 100 persons registered for the webinar, “Social connection and quality of life: The Sonnet Study”. The participants learned about a research project that is investigating how to measure social connectedness of residents. The importance of social connection was discussed as well as ways to encourage this within a ltc home.

The full webinar can be viewed here.

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New model of care coming to long-term care home in Thunder Bay

 

Judy Walters, behavioural support and butterfly lead at Pioneer Ridge Long-Term Care and Senior Services, says it’s important to keep in mind that long-term care homes are where residents live, not just where people work, when looking at how to make the space a more familiar environment. 
(Sarah Law/CBC)

The Butterfly approach which has already been adopted in long-term care homes elsewhere in Ontario is now coming to Pioneer Ridge where it will be the first in northwestern Ontario to adopt this model.

“Pioneer Ridge Long-Term Care and Senior Services, which houses 150 residents across four home areas on Tungsten St., will be integrating the new care model into its memory and dementia care section over the next 12 to 18 months”.  Click here to read more 

We need to see more long-term care homes in Ontario move in this direction to change long-term care homes from ‘institutions to homes’.   Please consider contacting your MPP or municipal councillor to advocate for this long overdue and much needed transformation in Ontario’s long-term care home system.

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For-profit and not-for-profit long term care homes

A Green House dining room (copied with permission)

As noted in our previous blog post, the debate about having for-profit and not-for-profit long term care homes continues.  The issue is that quality of life for those living in LTC homes has more to do with care delivery than the type of ownership.

In an article that appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on July 24th, 2024, James Schlegel provides an opinion piece in defense of mission-driven, for-profit long-term care in Ontario.  Click here to read more .

Many proven innovative models in long-term care have been successfully implemented in some homes (albeit too few) in both for-profit and not-for profit homes in Ontario.  These include municipal homes in the Peel Region (the first in the province to implement the Butterfly Approach), Jarlette homes (family-run for-profit), the Glebe Centre in Ottawa, and Osgoode Care Centre in Osgoode.

Get involved and advocate to change long-term care homes in Ontario from ‘institutions to homes’ by writing to MPP or city councillor.

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