In this podcast, we sit down with Jill Vitale-Aussem. Jill serves as President & CEO of Christian Living Communities, a Colorado-based not-for-profit serving more than 3,000 older adults and their families through its 23 owned and managed communities located in six states as well as its services of adult day care, home care, and consulting. Prior to joining Christian Living Communities, she served as President & CEO of The Eden Alternative. Jill has over two decades of experience as a nursing home administrator, CCRC executive director, and vice president of operations. She also is an esteemed author of "Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living: A Mindshift"
In her book, Jill Vitale-Aussem clearly highlights the role of our culture’s negative perception of aging as the culprit for suffering in an otherwise natural life process and promotes the importance of community, inclusion, and genuine belonging as opportunities for change. Listen to this disruptive leader explain how important it is to confront and rid our society of ageism.
In this podcast, we sit down with Jill Vitale-Aussem. Jill serves as President & CEO of Christian Living Communities, a Colorado-based not-for-profit serving more than 3,000 older adults and their families through its 23 owned and managed communities located in six states as well as its services of adult day care, home care, and consulting. Prior to joining Christian Living Communities, she served as President & CEO of The Eden Alternative. Jill has over two decades of experience as a nursing home administrator, CCRC executive director, and vice president of operations. She also is an esteemed author of "Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living: A Mindshift"
In her book, Jill Vitale-Aussem clearly highlights the role of our culture’s negative perception of aging as the culprit for suffering in an otherwise natural life process and promotes the importance of community, inclusion, and genuine belonging as opportunities for change. Listen to this disruptive leader explain how important it is to confront and rid our society of ageism.
Welcome to the senior housing investor podcast. If you are an investor or want to be an investor in senior housing, then you're in the right place. Hi, I'm John Hauber of Haven Senior Investments. We are pleased to present our newest episode where we bring you the innovators and leaders across the full spectrum of assisted living and senior housing, all of whom provide for the betterment of our senior population. The host of our show, Pamela Pyms has background in the industry. And she will be interviewing our honored guests. Hi, Pam.
Pam Pyms:Hi, John. Thanks very much. It's great to be here. Today, I'm with Jill Vitale-Aussem, who serves as President and CEO of Christian Living Communities, a Colorado based not-for-profit faith-based organization, serving more than 3000 older adults and their families. Through it's 22 owned and managed communities located in six states, as well as services of adult daycare, homecare and consulting. Jill has over 20 years of experience leading nursing homes, assisted living, and life plan communities. Prior to joining Christian Living Communities, she served as president and CEO of the Eden Alternative, an international nonprofit organization focused on creating quality of life for older people and their care partners. She's a licensed nursing home administrator, and a reframing aging facilitator. She's the author of Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living: A Mind Shift and speaks internationally on topics including ageism, leadership and culture change. Hi, Jill. Hi, thank you for having me today. What a pleasure to have you on today. So tell me about Christian Living Communities. How does CLC's Christian heritage and mission guide and impact your work?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:We were founded fourty-nine years ago by a group of individuals from the Christian Reformed Church. And the goal at that time was to, they built a nursing home in the Denver area. And the goal was to care for others from that faith tradition, as well as other people. And our mission, which is providing services and care that reflect Christian love, respect, and compassion toward each individual really guides us in everything that we do. It's not just something that hangs on the wall, or is on our website, we talk about it at all of our meetings, when we really call upon that mission to guide us. And what it leads us to is to welcome everyone. Residents, team members, family members, and others that work with our organization from all different faith backgrounds. And we really believe diversity makes our organization richer. And it also guides us today, as we begin work on diversity, equity and inclusion work. So what it really is about it's not about just certain people can come to live in our communities or work in our communities. But that mission statement of Christian love, respect and compassion guides us to honor, accept, include everyone.
Pam Pyms:Well, I'm really glad you cleared that up. Not that there was a misconception I don't think there ever was but it's nice to know how inclusive it is. Then your book, you talk about disrupting the status quo of senior living? So there's a big question, what do you mean by that?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:Well, it really comes from all of my years of doing this work, and really starting to understand as as I started to study ageism, as I started to study, you know, what do we really need to live a long and healthy life, it became really clear to me that a lot of the things that I was doing as a leader of a community, and a lot of the things that I saw in in communities all over the place, really were kind of rooted in ages notions, right, which is really about the stereotypes, the prejudice, that surrounds older people. And it doesn't mean we're bad people. It's that we've been getting these ages messages since we were children. And I've come to just realize that a lot of what we're doing is rooted in that. So an example of that is spending a lot of time and I spent a lot of time on this and I'm building beautiful buildings with lots of amenities and perfecting service. And there's nothing wrong with that. But what I started to realize is that it's not really in alignment with what other research shows we need to live a long and healthy life. That's why kind of the opposite of that the research shows that we need meaningful purpose in our lives, rather than a life where you put your feet up and never do anything again. We need to belonging, we need to keep growing. And what I really realized is that change won't come just from building prettier buildings, it needs to be a much deeper cultural shift that happens in our field.
Pam Pyms:Hmm. So if what I'm hearing is the status quo isn't the answer. What is?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:Well, I have come to believe very strongly that again, we should really be looking at what is the research show that we need. And again, we need to have meaningful purpose. So creating communities where the people that live in that community have opportunities to have meaningful roles in that community and actually influence the community that they live in. We need to keep learning and growing. And you know, what, what I always used to do is talk about who, who residents were in the past, versus Hey, what's next for this person? And what what do you want to learn next? How will you grow next? And I'm a really big proponent of reframing residents of senior living, moving away from that whole, framing people as customers or consumers to citizens. Hmm. Yeah, which is, it was a big again, you know, that whole mind shift to the title of the book, it's really changing the way we think about things. There's a lot of work that's been done with community building experts, that really talks about when we frame people as consumers, we create helplessness. And we create this situation where people think that the formal leader has to have all the answers. But in a citizenship model, everybody has a role to play, everybody understands that they are part of the whole and have a responsibility to other people as well, and can be a very, very powerful part of, you know, the solution, not just expecting somebody else to fix things, but how do we work together to make our community stronger and better?
Pam Pyms:Reminds me of the old sorority days. Can you give me some examples of this type of culture, some concrete examples that that are in play at CLC?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:Sure. So a recent example, during the height of the pandemic, you know, the organization. And I think this happened in a lot of lot of organizations, because there was so much that was unknown. And there was so much risk and a lot of fear and information coming at us from all different places. But in the beginning a lot of the decisions about how we're how well our community function, how will we ask residents to behave, what should people do and not be able to do to keep themselves safe was made by formal leadership. But over time, and again, because this very strong culture of this organization, there was a bit of a pause that happened and the clinical leader in the organization realize that, first of all, if you just try to keep people safe, a lot of times you bubble wrap people up to the point where people send you right, and that risk and should be part of deciding things. Now, in the areas of our communities that aren't regulated by nursing home or assisted living regulations, there was a great opportunity to really engage residents in deciding things. So what they came up with is what's called the health and happiness committee. And that committee is and my parents live in one of our communities. And my dad's been a part of this, this committee, which has been really neat to see. But residents work together with leadership to, you know, when things were starting to open up, they said, Okay, here's how we want to decide things. We're going to look at what's happening in our county, and based on where we are with a percentage of positive tests, then we're going to, you know, lessen restrictions. And with everybody working together to come up with that it made such a difference. It didn't feel like people were that lived in the community where, you know, just sitting back having someone else run their lives, they were deciding together. Here's how I want to protect myself and my neighbors. And that makes such a huge difference.
Pam Pyms:I bet to give them a voice of their own number one, rather than being told by somebody else. That's Yeah, that's, that's very important not to ever lose your own voice. So that's great. Wow. Let's talk a little bit about ageism and age related ableism. So why did these issues matter?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:I believe it's absolutely critical that we in this field become actively anti ageist. And the reason for that, and not just the people that work in this field, but all of us really, because, you know, there's there's so much research out there that shows, when we believe negative things about aging, if we hold all these negative stereotypes of aging, if we think when I am older, that it's all about becoming a burden to society, it's not having any purpose anymore. It's all about decline. It's actually a self fulfilling prophecy. There's a lot of research out there, that shows that what we believe about aging impacts the way we actually age. So if I believe all those negative things, I'm much more likely to have poor health to have cognitive challenges. And you know, it's such a big impact. There's the researchers have found that ageism is costing our country $63 billion a year. Medical expenses. Right. I mean, we're always talking about how do we reduce medical expenses? Well, addressing ageism, could really be a big part of that. The other thing that is really important is to realize how much this is impacting recruiting and retention of people working in our field. And that is one of the biggest challenges we face right now is we have a shortage of people to come work in our communities. And there has been research done that has found that if I have my own age related anxiety, then I'm much more likely to burn out in my job, I'm not going to be as committed to my job. And we know when those things happen. People leave.
Pam Pyms:Interesting.
Jill Vitale-Aussem:Yeah. So you know, just for those reasons alone, it really matters. And when you really start to shift the way you think about aging, your the community changes, and the people that live in our communities also have internalized ageism. So when you start pushing back against some of those things, then the residents start to see more possibilities, and start to look for more opportunities to have purpose and opportunities to grow. Because sometimes, you know, with with all those beliefs that people have, they might not think they can anymore when they reach a certain age.
Pam Pyms:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because it's great to talk about this ideal world, you know, of doing things differently. But how do you actually drive the change? Especially when they've thought their whole life one way?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:Yeah. Well, so this is changing the way people think, and changing a culture is really, really hard work. And what we're talking about with this kind of work, it's called it's called adaptive work versus technical work. And, you know, we're as human beings, we're very drawn to technical fixes, oh, I'll bring in somebody to do training. And I'll check some things off in some boxes and write some new policies and everything's fixed. That doesn't work for things like this. And, you know, there's a saying that all changes linguistic. Meaning that all change starts with conversations. And I really believe in this, this comes from my time with the Eden Alternative. And if you have people out there listening that want somebody to help them guide them in a cultural transformation, that's a great organization to go to. But my time with the Eden alternative, really taught me that our job as leaders isn't to say, Oh, I have all the answers. It's to figure out the right questions to ask and ask questions and get people talking. And that's what we did at one of one of my communities is, we started having what are called Learning Circles is what the Eden Alternative calls them, where you get people together in a small group, and you pose a question, and everybody has a chance to answer it. And we would ask questions like, you know, has there ever been a time in your life where you were treated differently because of your age? How did that make you feel? What are great things that come with aging? That's a great question to ask people, because it's not something we're often asked. And when you ask that question, all these great things start coming out. Oh my gosh, well, now that I'm older, I have perspective. I understand what matters in my life. I understand how important relationships are. So you start these conversations and that's what really starts to drive that change.
Pam Pyms:Right. I love hearing that. I really do. And I know that, that your change also starts with your thoughts, you know, and then the thoughts lead the conversation and just getting everyone involved like you're doing is terrific. So how did you get into this work?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:My very first job in this field, I was a, what we used to call a dietary aide, which is a terrible name, but it means I'm in the kitchen of a nursing home when I was in high school. And it wasn't. It wasn't a great experience. It was back in the 80s. It was very institutional. And, and to be honest, I didn't, I wasn't that teenager that was like, I want to change the world and make things better. I just thought, Oh, my gosh, I feel really bad for the people that live here. But over time, I've I got opportunities to come into this field, I got an an opportunity as an administrator in training at a life plan community and became a nursing home administrator there. And then over time, just kept growing in my career and learning and moving forward.
Pam Pyms:Hmm. Where were you? What state were you in?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:When I was at the administrator and training?
Pam Pyms:Yeah, well, start from the beginning. This is really interesting. So you're in the kitchen. And how did Why did you take that job? The very first job as a dietary consultant, or, or whatever? Well, I was a dietary aide, okay. I've already blocked that.
Jill Vitale-Aussem:I don't know. I just I needed a job. And it was near my house. Okay. And I could walk there after school on my way home. Again, it wasn't a great experience. And one of my most vivid memories, and I wrote about it in the book is, back in the day, back in the 80s. A lot of people that lived in a nursing home ended up being on pureed diets. Mm hmm. And that, putting things in a blender, and then they used to be fed with a syringe, which kind of looked like a turkey baister.
Pam Pyms:This was in the 80s they were doing this?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Yeah, I remember one evening dinner was chicken noodle soup, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. This wasn't a big fancy place. So. But for the people who, who had a pureed diet, all of that went in the blender together. Which is a horrifying, right. But if we'd have made progress, I guess what that story shows is we have made progress, we would never do that now. You know, it wasn't it wasn't. It was normal for the time, though, to have these kind of institutional settings. And, you know, we used to restrain people in their wheelchairs. And so I'm glad that we've made such progress. We still have a lot more work to do.
Pam Pyms:Mm hmm. So then from there, I want I'm looking more about your background, just because it's interesting. I mean, you've you've really arrived here as the CEO of CLC. So I would love to have, you know, if you don't mind sharing, just sort of what happened after that?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:Well so I ended up, went to college. And after that, between undergrad and grad school, I got a job doing. I was a community relations assistant and a nonprofit, senior living community. This is back in western New York. And so I did fundraising there for a couple of years, I just seemed to keep being put, I kept being pulled into this, even though I didn't know I was supposed to be in this field. And then I went back to grad school, and worked for a very progressive Wellness Center and spa out in Minneapolis. And then I got the opportunity to become a nursing home administrator at a community, too.
Pam Pyms:So you went to grad school? What did what did you get the degree in?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:I went to the hotel school at Cornell University. So Oh, well, I was looking for an MBA, but something more focused on service and service versus like a manufacturing kind of focus. So that's how I ended up at that school.
Pam Pyms:Huh? Wow. And then you went ahead and got the the nursing administrator license?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:Mm hmm.
Pam Pyms:Was that hard?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:It was in that that's one of the challenges we have in this field. Is it takes it takes a while to get your license. And I was fortunate to be somewhere where I could have a paid job while I did my did my on the job training. That isn't always possible for people, but that's a requirement in most states is that you're you're doing a certain number of hours. And what the first thing I did at that job is I said I don't how can you know what it's like to be a resident when you've never, you know, I'm in my 20s How do I know what it's like as a nursing home resident? So I had the team members there admit me as a resident, and come up with diagnoses for me, and I stayed in the community for 24 hours as a resident. It, it changed me forever. I mean, it was. And again, this was a great community, but it's just a lot of the very institutional practices that were this are still somewhat in place, but were really in place back then. And that was, you know, being woken up throughout the night to have your vital signs checked and being woken up at 530 in the morning, because the staff had to get everybody up and ready for breakfast by whatever, 730. So they get you up, and you're sitting in the hallway, just sitting around waiting. And I was sleep deprived. And I was depressed, like, I went home and cried. And so that really led me to realize that changes need to happen. And one of the things that was really interesting is, people would say to me, Well, you're never going to know what it's really like, because all the staff here know that you're the administrator. But what I learned is it's the experiences I had weren't from people not doing their jobs, it was from them actually following the policies and the processes that that we put in place either. So it really, it's not the people so much that are a problem. It's the systems and processes.
Pam Pyms:What a brilliant idea to do that.
Jill Vitale-Aussem:Oh, I recommend it to anyone that is in this field.
Pam Pyms:I do know an architect that did that once. And he had the same reaction as you and came up with different designs for the community even even that, yeah. All the way to that. Yeah. Wow. So how long were you an administrator there?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:Oh, goodness, I would say probably three years. And then I was transferred to a community in Hilton Head, South Carolina. That was a rough assignment being on the beach.
Pam Pyms:I'll bet you poor thing. So you you're an administrator there? Yes. Uh huh. Uh huh. And then we have time, can you tell we have time to talk Jill. Go on.
Jill Vitale-Aussem:Okay. Well, you know, I actually, when I was an administrator at this place in Hilton Head, and again, it was a great place. I had a really hard survey when, you now, every year, surveyors come in your building on behalf of C S. And I had a really bad surv y. And I had always had real y great ones. What made it bad? ell, and I guess this is a good story to tell, because it can he p other people that go throu h rough times know that it's not the end of the world. But here was an alarm on an exit do r that didn't alarm and that set off this whole, what they all an immediate Jeopardy, whi h is something you never want t get on a survey if you're a nu sing home administrator. And I idn't think it was fair, my, you know, my, my boss didn't think i was fair. I tried to fight CMS on my own. But it really it dest oyed me. You know, I was young, I hadn't really gone through hardships like that. And I decided I said, I can't wo k in this field anymore. And so I actually went and started y own consulting business for a ittle while and did restaurant c nsulting. And I just nee ed a break. I guess
Pam Pyms:Well what you were doing. I mean, I think people underestimate how hard I mean, it's really hard. You're responsible for all these lives. And you do the best you can. And then CMS comes in and says up no alarm. Doom.
Jill Vitale-Aussem:And I get they're trying to do their jobs. But it can it devastates people and it devastated me. I was just destroyed by it, because I had put my heart and soul into, you know, my work and then to have that kind of outcome was really hard.
Pam Pyms:That's interesting. So you left and went into restaurants. What was it that brought you back? And how long were you gone?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:Oh, probably a year and a half maybe. And I just, you know, I just realized that I needed to be back in the field. And so I got a position running an assisted living community. Actually moved from Hilton Head to Las Vegas for that job and ran assisted living community there. And then that company transferred me to Denver, which is how I ended up here.
Pam Pyms:Ah, very good. Very good. So now you're with how long have you been at Christian living?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:Well, I am a boomerang team member. I was with Christian Living Communities from 2009 to 2018, and that was an executive director, and was a Vice President of Operations when we started our management division. And throughout that time, I had been become an Eden Alternative educator and was doing all this work around that. And when the Eden Alternative CEO position opened up, I had to go do it. It was a chance to work on an international level and work with communities and people all over the world.
Pam Pyms:When I'm going to, I'm going to timeout you there. I want to know where you went all over the world. Like, where did you get to travel?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:I traveled a bit. We did a lot, virtually. But Australia is one of the places that I went to and Canada. But we were active. And I believe they still are in 19 different countries. So it was really great to learn from all of these different people all over the world about I always used to say, you know, it's it's great we're in 19 countries. But what's not great is 19 countries need the Eden Alternative to undo institutional practices and and the ageist foundations of that. So yeah, it's a it's a fabulous organization.
Pam Pyms:But you left.
Jill Vitale-Aussem:Because I was coming home to Christian Living Communities. Always my home.
Pam Pyms:Well, I bet they're very, very lucky to have you. Oh, I know, they are telling me what you're most excited about being there.
Jill Vitale-Aussem:I'm really excited to be back. I plan to be here until I retire.
Pam Pyms:Wait a minute retirement might not be in the new vocabulary?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:Well, that's true. All right. I plan to be here indefinitely. So I'm really excited about this organization has an incredibly strong culture, you know, strong foundation strong heritage. And I'm, I'm really excited about taking that further. Right now. We're looking at one of our communities, and we're doing a redevelopment project and really looking at how do we how do we create for the middle market? There's a lot that's out there for people who have money. And there are opportunities available for people who don't have a lot of money who need Medicaid, but there's it's, some people call it the forgotten middle market?
Pam Pyms:I've heard of this. Yes. What are you thinking about that?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:Well, we're just right now we're in the beginning stages of looking at that. But, you know, it really comes down to how do you build a building that you know, it is as as cost effective as it could be, so that you can keep rates low? And then how do you do a staffing plan and plan all your services and amenities to keep the costs down as well. I'm also excited, I don't know if this is going to happen at this community. But I think there are opportunities. And there are some organizations that are doing this where residents that live in communities do more things, and you might not need as many staff members kind of like a co housing culture, where people look out for each other. And I think we do a lot of things for people that maybe we don't need to be doing. And we have people that need purpose in their lives. And we need to cut costs. So those are the I don't have it all figured out. But that's what's in my head right now. I'm very excited about doing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion work that is very, very important to us. And our vision statement is is one of my favorite things as well. And that is creating communities where aging is honored and celebrated. And again, that's not just something that goes on a wall. I'm actually starting a book club with that are all of our campus directors, we're we're going to dig into that and what what does that really mean? And how do we identify places in our communities where what we're doing or what we're saying might be perpetuating ageism? And push back against that and look at how do we start to do things differently? I think what's always made this organization strong is that it's a learning organization. And so even though I'm really proud of who we are and where we are, we will constantly be evolving. And that's one of the areas where where we'll be focusing.
Pam Pyms:Well, I love your innovative spirit. And I'm sure you'll take it far. That's That's great. We have time for maybe one last question. And I I can't say I have one for you because you've answered so many so well. But do you have anything that I haven't asked that you can think of that you might like to share before we say goodbye?
Jill Vitale-Aussem:Hmm. So the one other thing that I didn't mention when we were talking about, what about ageism? And you had actually asked me about this age related ableism and ableism I define it as prejudice or discrimination stereotypes about people who are living with different cognitive or physical abilities. And if we're, if we're going to address ageism, we also have to look at that. What I see happening sometimes is, in an effort to push back against ageism, we'll highlight what you know, people sometimes call super agers, you know that the, and my dad could be one of those, right? My dad goes out and rides his bike for 50 miles. He's, he's 81 years old. And so there might be a tendency, oh, let's put him on our brochure and tell all these stories about about Dave. But you know, when and that's great. And when those stories are great, that 90 year old marathon runner, they can inspire us. But we have to be really careful because most of us aren't going to be running marathons when we're 80 or 90, or jumping out of airplanes or riding our bikes. And, and you know, some of us will be living with dementia, some of us will be living with frailty. And it's just really important that we honor aging in every, every one of its forms. Because if we start to if we focus on all these people who are doing, really these kind of rare and amazing things, we can actually increase the stigma for those who, whose aging journey is a little bit different. So that's just something that I try to focus on a lot is making sure that we are including aging in however it looks.
Pam Pyms:Yeah, well, anyway, good luck with everything you're thinking about. It really sounds fantastic. Okay. All right. Anyway, thanks for your time today. Thank you. Bye. Thanks for joining us today. This podcast is brought to you by Haven Senior Investments. Haven Senior Investments is the leading faith-based senior housing advisory firm focused on providing their clients with the knowledge and expertise necessary to support their goals of buying, selling, developing, investing, or operating in the senior housing market. They can be found at havenseniorinvestments.com