We've got photos, podcasts and video to share!
There is a lot to the Butterfly Approach to Care! It is a exciting culture shift that transforms so much about how "traditional" long-term care is delivered.
This web page is meant to be a starting place in your exploration, so feel free to look around! If you have questions, you are welcome to email Mary Connell ([email protected]) as the expert thought leader who is training our team members to implement the Butterfly Approach in Jarlette Health Services' long-term care homes.
The following Models of Care Webinar video features another leader in our organization, Jill Knowlton (Director of Long-Term Care Operations). As Part 1 of a three-part series for Ontario Health West, Jill explores the "what" behind the Butterfly Approach and prepares viewers for Part 2, focusing on the "how", and Part 3, which will focus on implementing and scaling-up the Butterfly Approach throughout an organization.
Welcome to our Butterfly Page!
What is the Butterfly Approach?
The Butterfly Approach, pioneered by Meaningful Care Matters, emphasizes the dignity of residents, as community members, their emotional health, and seeks to build a lifestyle around them which reflects their particular needs and personalities.
As one of our strategic pillars, our path forward includes expanding implementation of the Butterfly Approach across our 14 long-term care communities.
What does this mean for residents, family members, and team members in our communities?
What this means in each community may be different as each will be as unique as their community members. However, it could mean building daily routines around community members� needs and interests, such as eating or bathing when it suits them. It could mean engaging them in daily tasks such as cooking and laundry. It could mean creating a living environment which more strongly resembles a private dwelling by painting rooms and hallways in vibrant colours, changing the doors on rooms to look more like those of a private residence, or even bringing in their personal furniture.
The model is particularly suited to persons with dementia as it allows them the freedom to be themselves and creates an environment which is familiar to them and the stages of their life which are most important to them.
Why use the symbol of the butterfly?
They're diverse and colourful and evolve to their current state of beauty as they age, just as people do! They are also fragile, needing nourishment and a suitable environment, and yet when nurtured they can be resilient and persistent, living their lives with purpose and in constant movement.
While Jarlette Health Services has always delivered person-focused care, the Butterfly Approach will help us take this to a new level and lead to outcomes such as those in long-term care communities in other countries and parts of Canada where the model has been implemented. These include healthier and happier community members, lower use of supplements and certain kinds of medications, and greater emotional resiliency.
Since the Butterfly Approach involves a cultural transformation, training for team members and family members is important and we will undertake this in advance of and during each long-term care community's transformation.
The homes within our family of long-term care and retirement communities which have embarked on their Butterfly journey include Avalon Care Centre (Orangeville, ON), Temiskaming Lodge (Haileybury, ON) and Alexander Place (Waterdown, ON). The photos in our galleries are of those homes' transformations.