One WesleyLife: WesleyLife Meals on Wheels enhanced our impact on food insecurity and isolation among older adults in Central Iowa with delivery of holiday meals on Thanksgiving morning. Team members and more than 75 community volunteers assisted in making the day a little brighter for those who planned to spend it alone. Check out the news story on Channel 13- linked below!
Avenue Scholars visited WesleyLife, where students enjoyed speaking to staff and residents about their career plans and the experience of residents at Wesley. They were given a well-rounded tour of our Community for Healthy Living, learning about the different types of care provided and the various careers that support those services. They also gained valuable insights into dementia care and the various careers focused on supporting individuals with dementia. We offer work-based learning, job shadowing, and job opportunities for students interested in getting their foot in the door of a meaningful healthcare career. Thank you, Avenue Scholars, for the visit!
It's Friday. You're a nurse who's worked all week at the hospital. You really wish you didn't have to go back. Britt, director of nursing for Brio of Johnston, a WesleyLife Community, will tell you why you don't. Take two minutes to listen to what Britt has to say, then take control of your destiny and visit wesleylife.org/careers. One of our 15 locations is the perfect fit for you!
What Do Home Health Nurses Do?
Prairie Meadows Hydroponic Farm on the WesleyLife Meals on Wheels campus, Des Moines, Iowa
Social Work Month spotlights team member's journey with WesleyLife In honor of National Social Work Month, we salute these important professionals who make such a difference to our organization. One is Chelsey Morling, Director of Social Services at The Summit of Bettendorf in the Quad Cities. Chelsey tells her story, including just why WesleyLife means so much to her, in the interview below!
If someone had told Jaqueline Kwete a few years ago that her life would look the way it does now, she wouldn't have believed them. As a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), she is grateful for the career path on which she's found herself, and says she has Wesley on Grand — WesleyLife's Community for Healthy Living in Des Moines — to thank.
Custom-designed hats make residents feel special Sky Mougin, Memory Care Lifestyles Coordinator at Halcyon House in Washington, Iowa, knew it wasn't just her imagination; she had begun noticing something strange. "I would watch residents going out for doctors' appointments, and some wouldn't wear their hats," she says. "I don't know if they didn't like the way the hats felt, or if they just were not hat-wearers, but we had a period there where it was really cold, and I worried about them. "At the same time, I saw something cool that a school class had done, so I put two and two together and thought, 'Hey, that might work for us!'" Hat collage "Might work" is an understatement; if you visit Halcyon House, you'll see nine residents in the community's memory care households proudly sporting hats that they designed themselves under Sky's tutelage. (You can see a few of them in the photo above.) Maria with hats Artists at work Here's how the project came together: After doing a bit of planning, Sky gathered a group of residents and talked with them about favorite hats from their pasts, or hats they felt they'd to wear one day. Then Sky passed out the markers and asked the residents to draw pictures of those hats. The residents worked diligently, Sky says, and ended up with beautiful representations of hats that appealed to or meant something to them. Sky then collected the drawings and gave them to one of her fellow team members, Certified Nursing Assistant Maria Cancho
