Mother’s Day in Assisted Living: Engaging Staff, Residents, and Families

Mother’s Day is just around the corner, and you know how significant the day can be for mothers in your Assisted Living community. It can be a wonderful day to spend time with children and grandchildren, but it can also be a lonely day when living apart from family. Your job, then, is to help your community members feel appreciated and loved on Mother’s Day regardless of their circumstances.

In this article, we will cover tips and strategies for engaging with residents and their families during Mother’s Day. The purpose of these strategies is twofold: 

• You want to ensure that residents feel celebrated on Mother’s Day and feel that they are valuable members of your community

• You want to support community growth by maintaining connections with residents, family members, and staff during the holiday

Implementing these strategies will require the involvement of multiple members of your assisted living team, including caretakers, in-house staff members, sales teams, and marketers. Mother’s Day is the perfect time to bring your whole team together to strengthen your community and maintain positive growth. You can pick and choose which of the tips below will work best for your unique assisted living community, though we recommend implementing a few different strategies. Additionally, you can use these same strategies during other holidays and important events in your community.

8 Tips for Celebrating Mother’s Day in Your Assisted Living Community

1. Involve the entire care team (including families)

As stated above, you should involve your entire team when planning events for Mother’s Day. However, this should extend beyond just your community staff. You should also contact family members and other loved ones that make up a resident’s “care team” to team up to celebrate Mother’s Day. Communicate your plans with residents’ loved ones and invite them to participate or offer their own suggestions. If they are planning their own celebration, then offer to help. Remember, families that feel connected to and supported by their loved one’s assisted living community are more likely to support your community and recommend it to others.

2. Get seniors involved in planning

You can also get residents involved in planning community-wide Mother’s Day activities. When residents are part of planning committees for community events, they feel more involved in their communities and report higher satisfaction with their living situation. To facilitate this, you can send out a call for event volunteers, ask for activity suggestions, or approach specific residents that you think would benefit from getting involved. You can also set aside a specific time or location for event planning and make sure that staff members are nearby to assist.

3. Make activities accessible for residents and families

When planning an event, you always must ensure that it is accessible for your residents. Keep in mind your residents’ physical or mental limits and make sure that no resident feels left out because of accessibility issues.

Additionally, you can make events accessible for families who may not be able to attend in-person by adding a virtual component. For example, if you host a Mother’s Day tea party, you can let families video call in to join the festivities. You can include details about remote attendance options when you send out invites to families.

If you need more ideas about great Mother’s Day activities for assisted living, then check out these articles from S&S Blog, Five Star Senior Living, and Golden Carers.

4. Offer families deals for gifts

Here’s a great way to both celebrate your residents and establish relationships in your larger community: you can team up with local businesses to offer deals to families for gifts for their loved ones. To do this, you can make use of your referral network to identify businesses or services that would be interested in offering deals for seniors. Then, you can send their information to your residents’ loved ones. This method lets you build a stronger relationship with both families and local community members while serving as a reminder to families not to forget their mother or grandmother on this special day.

5. Personalize the celebration

When planning and hosting a celebration, make sure that residents feel personally recognized and celebrated. You can do this by personalizing invitations with their names, adding name cards for special meals, and highlighting personal details and accomplishments during activities. You should make it clear to your resident that you know their specific story about being a mom. Doing so will let your resident know that you’re not just celebrating all moms, you are celebrating THEM. If you don’t yet know important personal details about your residents, now is the time to discover them as you prepare for Mother’s Day.

6. Record video messages from residents

Another way to get families involved with your celebrations is to record video messages from residents. You can use a video messaging platform like Covideo to record and send thank you videos for Mother’s Day gifts or check-ins so that families feel connected with their loved one even when they can’t meet in-person. You can also create videos showcasing Mother’s Day activities at your community and then send them to families via email or text message.

7. Include Mother’s Day plans in your marketing materials

Mother’s Day is a perfect opportunity to update your marketing materials to showcase your community. You can include images and videos from Mother’s Day activities to demonstrate to prospective residents and their families that your community is tight-knit, fun, and caring. Families want to ensure that their loved one is going to a community that will care for them and help them thrive. You can help alleviate concerns by showcasing your awesome celebrations and support for residents who are mothers and grandmothers.

8. Celebrate staff too!

Finally, don’t forget to support your staff members who are mothers too! Your staff members work hard every day to care for residents while also caring for their own children and grandchildren. Show your appreciation for their hard work by celebrating them and their families, sending small gifts, or recording thank you videos from residents. These will all help your staff members feel more appreciated, thus decreasing turn-around and ensuring quality staff retention.

Covideo: Your Go-To Video Tool for Assisted Living

Several of the above strategies use the power of video to make your Mother’s Day celebrations the best they can be. However, in order to send personalized video messages and create video marketing materials, you need access to a video email platform. Covideo is the #1 video tool for assisted living communities. You can use Covideo in every team in your community, from sales and marketing to care teams. Learn how one of our customers reduced their community’s sales cycle by 87%!