5 Components Of A Successful Caregiving And Monetary Management Meeting For Older Adults
As your parent ages, the need for providing care may be something that the whole family wants to discuss. And this is also true with handling their finances and payment of bills. That’s why holding a family meeting to make care, financial, and bill payment management decisions for your parents is important.
Without having a meeting, those who are not directly involved in providing care may not make an effort to help out. Likewise, they may be able to fully understand the importance of the challenges or realize the amount of energy, time, and money that is really needed to provide proper care and management.
Holding a gathering to talk about caregiving and money matters is not that easy because you are bringing together family members who have different opinions, emotional histories, and communication styles. So preparation is a must in order to have a productive outcome.
We recommend that you review this blog post as we are going to talk about the 5 components of a successful caregiving and monetary management meeting for older adults.
1. Who Needs To Attend?
Family – The concept of “family” is different from one home to another, but we recommend that you include those people who will be directly involved in the caregiving and money decision-making process. So in a sense, this could be anyone from you, your siblings, extended family member, close friends, paid caregivers, and money management advisors for seniors (if any).
Those who will need to participate depend on the topics to be discussed – When choosing those who are required to attend the meeting, it’s best to plan attendance based on proposed topics. For example, if one of the items on the agenda concerns the finances of the family as well as the hiring of capable financial and bill payment managers, then the meeting should likely be limited to immediate family members. But if you’re going to talk about coordination of tasks and doctor’s appointments, then you may want to invite other people outside of the immediate family.
Seek external help if communication is an issue – If the relationship of the family is already strained or if you feel that the participants at the meeting might not work well together, then consider having an outside facilitator to help everyone work through any issues. You may want to consider a family mediator who is a trained professional.
Consider whether your parent should attend. Of course, this depends upon the situation. For example, if your parent is already suffering from dementia, Alzheimer’s or another similar condition, then it would be up to your discretion whether to include him or her. In many cases, it would be important for your parent to attend so that he or she can be involved in important decisions.
2. How Should The Meeting Begin
We recommend that you prepare an agenda of the things that will be discussed at the meeting and send it to the participants in advance so that everyone will be properly informed about the things to be tackled.
3. During The Meeting
– Choose a place where everyone will feel at ease during the meeting.
– Have an open discussion to allow participants to express their opinions without the fear of being judged.
– Get the whole picture before moving into problem-solving.
– Be respectful at all times and avoid aggressive tones as well as harsh language to prevent tension.
– Summarize everything just to make sure that everyone was able to understand their responsibilities clearly.
4. Potential Changes
Holding family meetings, in general, is not easy. And this is also true in the case of a caregiving and monetary management meeting for older adults. So if there’s a possibility that conflict might arise during the course of the meeting, we recommend that you include a mediator to help manage the process and set aside personal issues and focus on the goal of providing proper care for your parent.
5. Focus On What’s Best For Your Parent
And finally, the purpose of having a caregiving and monetary management meeting for your parent is to work towards a general agreement among all the parties involved and to ensure that issues are handled well including managing household bills. Even if the process might be painful and you have to make difficult choices, focus on the interests of your parent who may be in need of care and financial guidance.
One way to alleviate stress and organize your efforts is to hire professionals to handle certain of the discreet tasks. If you want to ensure that your parent’s household bills are managed professionally, visit the Silverbills website and take advantage of our trusted household bill-management services.