We are excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Paula Levy. We hope you will enjoy our conversation with Paula below.
Paula, thanks for joining us, we are excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you get your first job in the field that you practice in today?
My first job paved the way to my current career, a career that is in its 36th year. I am one of the few people who can honestly say their work is their passion and their passion is their work! By changing my major after my first Chemistry course, the first day of college – (I wanted to be a Registered Dietitian, so I thought) – led me to the major, Leisure Science (Recreation), and the course of my life’s work took hold. Yes, I enrolled in classes like square dancing, badminton, and golf but there were also classes like leadership development, statistics, community, and corporate recreation – and it was these courses which really sparked my interest and led me to learn of all the different opportunities awaited me after graduation. As I delved deeper into the classes and thought more about my current interests, I realized that I had a genuine concern and keen curiosity for the senior population. This was due in part to the significant role that my grandparents played in my life. We had the privilege of having all four of them in attendance at our wedding.
They were special people that I looked up to so much that when all my cousins were outside playing, I was sitting at my grandparents’ feet, on their front porch, listening to their stories and soaking in their wisdom – knowing that they had so much to offer.
As my college days were wrapping up, I was required to complete two field works to round out my major – the first field work I completed was at the Colorado Springs Senior Center, working with healthy and active seniors. I got to experience every facet of that center! I helped to serve lunch, worked in the health clinic, and led exercises and activities. I worked with arts and crafts groups, and I went on outings. I welcomed and received people at the front desk where I got to know every single senior that walked through the front doors. My final project was to start a weekly bike club, and, as a group, we rode our bikes throughout Colorado Springs. What a gift it was to work with all these healthy, active seniors who were living life to the fullest and having fun!
My second and final field work went in a different direction. I chose the nursing home setting, I wanted to work with the geriatric resident. I wanted to see how to engage and connect with that population. I was fortunate to have had an amazing mentor at that nursing home. She helped to influence and mold my career path. After I graduated from college, I went back to that nursing home and got my first job in their activities department. But there had been some drastic changes to the facility since I had last been there. While I was gone, the higher ups had decided to put secure doors up at the end of a hallway and call it an Alzheimer’s unit. In this unit is where they had placed all the wandering residents – the ones who were wandering throughout the facility, going in and out of other people’s rooms, going in and out of offices, and trying to escape out the front door. The nursing center had decided to place these residents in that one hallway and called it their “secured Alzheimer’s unit.” This was the beginning of Alzheimer’s units. These units were just becoming a thing as Alzheimer’s was just becoming a buzzword back in the late eighties. On my second day on the job, at our daily morning staff meeting, the administrator said “we need someone to go back on the Alzheimer’s unit and engage those residents in some sort of activity” and without even thinking my hand shot straight up in the air – and I said, ”I’ll go.” So, I did. I stepped back on that unit and I never looked back. I had found my people. I loved that secure Alzheimer’s unit…a place where I had to introduce myself throughout the day to the same people and doing repeatedly throughout the day and then do it all over again the next day. This unit was a safe place, where everyone could be who they were and say what they wanted to say – because everyone was doing the best they could. Everyone was accepted for who they were…and this is where my love for working with people living with dementia began. But it was not just working with them that filled my heart and soul, it was that I also had the honor and privilege of supporting their families who came in and out of the unit to visit their loved ones. It was a twofold making a difference in the lives of people who were in such need of something other than the ongoing, unsolicited daily challenges that were not going to let up – their long goodbye.
From that that first job, a year later, I went on to be an activities therapist in a state-of-the-art Alzheimer’s facility. A couple of years into that job, I developed an adult day program on the facility’s lower level. My last few years in that facility I became a Long-Term Care Administrator and ran the whole operation. In the late nineties my husband had the opportunity to purchase the restaurant of his dreams and that took us out of Colorado Springs and up a little mountain pass to the city of Woodland Park. It was here where we started and raised our family. I became a stay-at-home mom, yet I still desired to keep my hand in the Alzheimer’s field. I quickly became a volunteer with the Alzheimer’s Association, facilitating caregiver support groups throughout our community. After a couple of years of watching the attendance in those groups drastically fluctuate, I decided that our community needed a safe place where caregivers take their loved one for a couple of hours, for 1/2 a day, for a full day, several times a week, or for just one day a week. A place where caregivers could get respite and their loved one could engage in meaningful and social activities – a place where participants could create community – a place where the environment could and would entice them unlike anything that they could get at home, one-on-one with their caregiver. So, without knowing anything about nonprofits or what it would take to open an adult day program by myself, I took the plunge. I applied for a nonprofit, I found a house that was zoned both commercial and residential, and I opened an adult day program for those living with dementia and other forms of brain change. It was up and running in less than a year and was open for seven years. Families came from three different counties, some travelling as far as one hundred miles roundtrip. The program offered many special activities and experiences. Several things happened during the last few years that the program was open – the day program took a hit with COVID but remarkably, we survived it unscathed, the other thing was the loss of my husband. A few years ago, I passed the torch on to someone to keep the day program up and running and I moved back to Colorado Springs, starting my own caregiver consulting business. Sadly, the day program did not survive the Executive Director transition. After getting settled in my new home and my feet grounded again, I have decided to start another nonprofit, an adult day program to serve the Colorado Springs community. A place where caregivers will be able to bring their loved ones, knowing that they will be safe, they will have the opportunity to create community, and engage in meaningful activities that they otherwise would/could not get anywhere else. This is my next venture – to find the right building, begin writing grants and to develop this day program for caregivers in our area and beyond, so that they can have a break in their day and their loved ones can have a day out with peers. This new program will be called A Place Like Home Adult Day Program.
This is how my first job started, with a quick change of major in college, after just the first day of classes, I was led to the most rewarding work that I could ever imagine. It is what gets me up in the morning, it is what fills my heart to overflowing, and it is what makes me go to bed with a smile on my face every night.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Ever since I can remember, I have had a deep and genuine passion for the elderly. I have spent the past 3 decades of my life working to make a difference in the lives of people living with dementia along with assisting their family members and caregivers along their arduous caregiving journey. I graduated from Pepperdine University, earning my B.S. in Leisure Science/Recreation with an emphasis in Gerontology. I have also earned Trainer, Consultant, and Advanced Consultant certifications from Teepa Snow’s Positive Approach to Care, and I complete their extensive recertification process annually.
I am the founder & former executive director of DayBreak, the first and only program to provide adult day services in Teller County. I have also worked as an activities therapist and a nursing home administrator at Namaste Alzheimer’s Center in Colorado Springs.
Since 1999, I have volunteered as a facilitator for the Alzheimer’s Association’s caregiver support groups in the Teller County area. I was honored to receive the Volunteer of the Year award in 2012. In 2019, I was also awarded the Joe Henjum Senior Accolades Legacy award: Business Professional by the Senior Resource Council. In 2022, I was named the first recipient of the Joe Henjum Lifetime Achievement Award by the Senior Resource Council of Colorado Springs.
Throughout the years of working with people living with dementia and their tireless caregivers, I’ve learned the profound value of quality caregiver support. I am here to help caregivers get the support & stability they need, to gain the confidence they need to make the best choices for their loved ones, and to live more enjoyable lives.
I am currently a Dementia Care Specialist/Caregiver Consultant in my own business, Never Alone Consulting in Colorado Springs and am also actively developing A Place Like Home Adult Day Program for the Colorado Springs community and beyond.
Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?
There is absolutely no hesitation at all in my answer to the question above…I would choose the same profession – Dementia Care Specialist/Caregiver Consultant, with same specialty – Alzheimer’s, dementia and other brain changing diagnoses.
There is no better profession – where I am sure that every day, I am truly making a difference in someone’s life…no matter how big or small, I know I have helped change a life for the better.
I LOVE my work!
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
There have been lots of stories of resilience along my journey – re-applying for a grant more than once and then finally getting awarded the funding; falling short of our capital campaign goal for a new building, having to terminate the real estate contract and return hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of funding to several foundations with tears in my eyes; learning that one of our participants had passed away – I was sad but comforted in knowing how special we made their final chapter through their participation in our day program – plus knowing that there were always other individuals waiting in the wings to receive our unique and quality programming.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.neveraloneconsulting.com/
- Instagram: pal.neveraloneonsulting
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/palevy66
- Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/paula-levy-dementia-care-expert
Image Credits
all photos taken by paula levy except for the head shot of paula which was taken by Natalie Morrow with www.GoodMorrowPhotography.com