After nearly 20 years in the field of Home Health, Hospice, and Long-Term Care specifically Assisted Living and Dementia Supportive Communities, I really felt a stir to shake the industry up a bit. Our industry, and especially the sales side, often forgets why we do what we do and the impact felt by elders and their families. So many times over the years, we were urged to “sell more” and “make our numbers better”, leaving out the whole reason of our “Why”. After having a particularly hard experience, I left the industry for greener pastures, only to find that they were the same philosophies, just different owners. Glenn, my husband and business partner, and I decided that we wanted to have the say so in how we worked with elders and their families and to offer my nearly 20 years of experience with grace and compassion. That’s where Senior Living Advisors of Austin was born. We began guiding families in finding the most appropriate senior living community for their loved one, and yet families were asking us for more – so, we began offering Advanced Care Planning (from diagnosis through end of life – what does that care look like and how are we going to pay for it?), Consulting, Education and Support. We are guided daily by always doing what’s right by the client, knowing that we will be paid for the work that we do. We are never guided by the financial side of the business, although that’s incredibly important to sustaining a viable business entity, yet the client, and what’s right by them, is always the top priority. We have been running our business now for over 4 years, and we’ve learned a few things – we must keep a steady pace, building in regular rest breaks (thank you Chad Wright and Forward Partners!), each of our roles, while quite different are both extremely valuable in the success of what we do, and above all, keeping the client the most important thing. Always. It has built our reputation in the market to something that we could have never dreamed. And, for that, we are incredibly blessed and thankful!

Senior Living Advisors of Austin guides families in finding care for an aging loved one – from senior housing placement (especially dedicated to great quality dementia care), Advanced Care Planning, Consulting, Education of both client and community, along with numerous support groups for those living with and caring with persons living with dementia. We began SLAAustin because we saw a need in the market for honest, ethical, sound advice to older persons and their care partners that was compassionate and accurate, never salesy nor pushy. We work with each family very individually, guiding them to the best choices for them and their families – always keeping in mind THEIR needs, as opposed to ours. The journey to finding appropriate care is often an extremely overwhelming and confusing one, with numerous “sales people” giving you different answers, and yet…what is honest, ethical and focused on the client? That is what we do. We are most proud of the work that we do for families, whether they end up utilizing our service or not, they walk away with sound advice that guides them in making the best decisions for them. Most families are left with the knowledge that we are truly here to help in whatever capacity we can – and, it shows by our Google reviews in heartfelt thanks for the guidance that we have provided. We feel honored to serve families day in and day out.

Yes! The answer is yes a thousand times. We’ve all heard the adage – “If I could turn back time, I would have met you sooner so I could love you longer”…I wish I had found my calling – the heart and passion to serve elders and their families – sooner so that I could have had more time to learn and grow. The field of brain change, how the brain works, its numerous disease states – mainly dementia related diseases, fascinates me. I learn something new every single day, in which I try to incorporate into the work that we do with families. We have also discovered our passion for educating a new generation of professional caregiver in learning new tools in which to help individuals living with brain change. So, we have begun a new portion of our business in partnering with professionals of all types – home care agencies, home health agencies, hospice agencies, assisted living and memory care communities alike – in training and educating their front-line staff in recognizing the many facets to dementia and how a person’s reactions and expressions affect care, along with how we as the professional can offer more compassionate, appropriate care. Our learning never ends so that we can help educate those that come behind us.

The biggest change that we in the healthcare field have had to experience was 2020-2021 with COVID-related illness. This had a profound effect on all of us – Senior Living Advisors of Austin was not immune. We learned very quickly in March 2020 when all of our senior living communities were shut down to visitors that we needed to change with the times. We quickly turned to ZOOM in which we met with families, conducted “visits” to senior living communities, and offered Care Plan meetings for families that were not able to visit with their loved ones in long-term care settings. What an incredibly difficult time, yet important time for us to “bridge the gap” between the long-term care settings and families who were doing their best to care for each individual, yet coming from such opposite ends of the spectrum. Having been in the community setting for nearly 20 years, along with holding a current licensure as a Certified Assisted Living Manager and knowing the State of Texas regulations surrounding our long-term care settings, we could explain the numerous, often daily, changes that were happening inside our community settings. This often eased their minds with an explanation, or even some carefully maneuvered phone calls to find out what was going on – often asking the questions of our long-term care settings that they did not know to even ask. We also, during this time, moved all of our support groups online to best meet the needs of our family care partners who still needed a way to connect. As some of our Texas groups disappeared, our Central Texas presence grew to state-wide and nation-wide. So much so that now 2 1/2 years later, we have group members in our groups from across the nation and they don’t want to go back to in-person groups only because we will lose so many through distance, so once again – we have morphed. We have kept all of our groups in online format, yet added a bi-annual “Meet Up” at a location here in the Austin area for those that wish to get together, meet each other face to face and of course, hug a few necks. It was been a joy and a privilege to be in their lives! They are the real heroes of all of this!