Our Home Life

Issue 3 June/July 2013

Prepared and Written by residents of Jewish Home Lifecare, Manhattan Division

Answers to Library Questions 3 Spotlight on Social Activities 4

An artist’s rendering of the Green House® Building.

Food and Nutrition Director 5

Transition to the Green House® Model

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Newsletter Committee Members & Contributors Kathleen Foglino Jessie Galloway Barry Gershenhorn Toni Greene Helen Rausch, Editor Rachel Weiss Amy Zerba, Volunteer Facilitator Jessica Sinovoi, Staff Facilitator The Newsletter Committee was formed by a group of Residents in January 2013 to allow residents and patients the opportunity to learn what is going on at Jewish Home Lifecare, Manhattan Division. Amy Zerba is the Volunteer Facilitator and works as a Staff Editor for The New York Times For more information, please contact the Department of Community Life: 212-8704940

By Kathleen Foglino

For four years, the Jewish Home administration and the 1199 Union went about the country looking for the best model of care for the elderly and eventually decided upon the Green House® Model. To learn about the Green House Model, Paul Padial, then the Neighborhood Development Coordinator at the Jewish Home, spent a week living in a Green House residence in Upstate New York, sharing meals with residents, three family members, two staff members called “Shabazzim” and a social worker at a common table. “The Green House Model breaks up large institutions into smaller households,” he said. “The Green House Model looks at people like individuals.” Jewish Home Lifecare plans to build a new a Green House building at 97th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues (next to Columbus Square and around the corner from Whole Foods). The tentative move-in date is 2017. There will be two households on See Green House, Page 2

Our Home Life

June/July 2013

Green House, From Page 1 each floor and each household will have 12 residents. Residents will have their own personal space — a private room and a bathroom with a shower. They will be able to control their own climate temperature. There will be a kitchen and common living room in each 12-person household with a hearth at the center of the unit where people can socialize. Each household will have a washer and dryer. The Living Center, as it will be called, will be the first urban high-rise Green House (more than 20 stories high). “Jewish Home Lifecare will move from a taskoriented institution to a person-centered community,” Padial said. “The Green House Model focuses on relationships and deep knowing,” Padial added. Staffers, to be called “adirim” will be considered the leaders of each household and he or she will be responsible for cooking, light housekeeping and eldercare. Residents will have a say in what they eat and can help plan the menu. In addition, residents can wake up when they want. “A Green House follows your natural rhythms for a household,” he said. There will also be a clinical support team – physicians, nurses, social workers and therapists — available to care for elders and support the households. The first floor will house a beautiful garden with raised planting beds and fountains. A glass window that spans the entire lobby will bring the “outdoors” “indoors”. A common floor will have a library, auditorium, a gift shop, a coffee shop, and a bistro.

The Green House will be on West 97th Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues (B), nine blocks south of the Jewish Home on 106th Street (A). (Map by Google) Padial said that moving to the new Jewish Home Green House will be challenging because it involves changing the culture from a medical model to a person-centered model. The home is preparing for the transition by working with the 1199 Union so that the staff will be able to adjust to the Green House model. Each person will be treated as an individual. “We view elders as people who are still growing, learning and developing, a vital part of the community,” he said. He added, “The Green House philosophy can influence the way we care for the elderly in the future and I think the Jewish Home is going to break ground and show everyone how it’s done.” — Interview by Staff 2

Our Home Life

June/July 2013

Resident Q & A: Library How do you check out books from the Library and how long can you keep them? The library at Jewish Home works on an honor system, meaning you can check out any book as long as you return it. The recommended return date is three to four weeks. Residents can place returned books back on the shelf in the appropriate order or in the return carts inside the room. How do residents identify large print books? The large print books have yellow stickers on their spines. I’m visually impaired or prefer audio books. Are there talking books available to me? Yes. Contact the Department of Community Life with your request for a certain book. The library has access to the New York Public Library system to check out books our library does not have. What are the hours to check out books or use a computer? The library is open 24 hours, seven days a week. How does one gain access to the computers in the room? Is there a time limit?

Painting by Yoshiko Ugawa, Creative Arts Therapy Intern Subjects: Helen Rausch & Jessie Galloway Are iPads available for residents to check out? Each therapeutic recreation staff member has an iPad for activities on the floor that can be borrowed/used by residents. At this time, we do not allow them to be checked out overnight. Does the library take book donations? All the library books have come from donations. At this time we are only accepting large print books in perfect condition. We request that no book donations should be left in the library. If you would like to make a donation, please do so by calling the Department of Community Life at 212-870-4940 — Staff

Residents can use any of the computers in the room at any time. There is no time limit. 3

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Spotlight on Group Activities The following is a select group of therapeutic recreation activities at Jewish Home Lifecare, Manhattan division. We will highlight more groups in future editions. Please check the printed Therapeutic Recreation Calendar for a full listing of events and times. Activities typically last about an hour.

Up for a Trivia Challenge?

Residents are helped with planting herbs in planters.

Get Your Hands Dirty The Planting Club met in the garden in May in connection with Shavuot, to plant herbs — parsley, rosemary, peppermint, basil and oregano. Residents worked on tables so they did not have to bend. The next week, residents planted tomato seedlings, string beans, peppers and cucumbers. Shavuot is the celebration of the beginning of spring harvest. We give thanks for new crops and farm lambs. Families get together for a lavish dairy meal. In contemporary Israel, the girls wear white dresses with floral wreaths in their hair. Shavuot commemorates the anniversary of the day God gave the Torah at Mount Sinai. The Planting Club meets every Friday at 2 p.m. — Rachel Weiss

You can spend an hour of Trivia with Adetola as Barry Gershenhorn asks trivia questions of the audience. Do you remember Ivory or Palmolive advertisements? What year was the Model T built? Who was the New York mayor in the 1930s? Do you recall old movies and movie stars? Review the past with us; welcome to Memory Lane. Join us on Mondays at 3 p.m. to test your knowledge. (The Junior League periodically offers a team trivia night. There also are trivia activities on some units.) — Kathleen Foglino

Unwind at Happy Hour Come chill out and have a drink (a beer, glass of wine or ginger ale) and snack (chips and pretzels) at Happy Hour. Residents can listen to jazz, rhythm and blues and contemporary music while mingling with neighbors. The musicians sometimes play the piano, saxophone and/or drums. Happy Hour is held bimonthly on Wednesdays at 3 p.m. in the Auditorium. During the summer, Happy Hour may be held in the Garden. — Staff See Activities, Page 7

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Our Home Life

June/July 2013

Quaglietta is the Key Ingredient Behind Our Meals By Kathleen Foglino and Helen Rausch

Personable, earnest and eager to make a difference, Christine Quaglietta coordinates the menu at Jewish Home Lifecare with the Executive Chef and Chief Clinical Dietician. As Director of Food and Nutrition, Quaglietta incorporates seasonal variations into the dishes and plans for special events and dinners. She has been at Jewish Home for just over a year. Quaglietta oversees a staff of 83 employees. The staff undertakes specialized duties in preparing and delivering the meals. Pauline Chambers, a Registered Dietician on staff praised Quaglietta for helping organize the kitchen. The cooking starts at 6 a.m. and breakfast is served starting at 7 a.m. There are six dieticians and a chief clinical dietician, five cooks (two in the morning, two in the afternoon/evening and a backup). A Kosherstyle menu is followed with dairy in the morning, meat at lunch and meat or dairy for supper. Lunch is the main meal at Jewish Home. There are 514 people to feed (not counting the Day Care program) three meals a day. Some baked goods, such as pies, are made on the premises. There are some constraints in preparing meals for the elderly, such as dietary issues. For example, those unable to chew food well have their food pureed. Nutrition needs must be followed. The Department of Health also inspects for food safety.

Photo of Christine Quaglietta For example, milk must be kept within a certain temperature range. . The Kosherstyle menu also leads to certain restrictions, such as no shellfish or pork. Quaglietta periodically does residents’ “rounding,” in which she talks to individuals about what they like and don’t like about the food. “Test trays” are also used to control quality. A test tray is made up, the food temperature is taken and then trays are taken to floors to discern if the food is still hot or cold. The dieticians on the units and the nurses on the floors give her feedback about the food. To keep up with who eats what, a dietary program called the “geri menu” is used. This is a computerized system in which the name of each resident is entered along with dietary restrictions and preferences. See Food, Page 6 5

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Food, From Page 5

A cardinal in the Garden. Photo by Siobhan McKeon Solan, Melinda

Birding 101 Can your ear detect the birdsong of a cardinal, sparrow or robin? In “Birding 101,” we heard bird songs from the internet. Paul Padial, a longtime birder, gave us a presentation of basic ornithology. Birds are of interest because of their various colors, shapes, flights and songs. More than 200 different species frequent New York City because we are on the line of the Atlantic Flyway. Our garden, which is near Central Park, is part of that flyway. Look in the shrubbery or up in the trees and you will see robins, cardinals, sparrows and blue jays. Listen and you will hear their songs. In early spring, some residents in the Sutro building, looking out their windows spotted warblers, two hawks, blue jays, cardinals, a small owl, a woodpecker and an errant canary. Some of the birds are drawn to the four birdfeeders on nearby trees. — Staff

Quaglietta, who has a Bachelor’s degree in business from Fordham College and a Master’s degree in Nutrition from Brooklyn College, spent 12 years as director of food and nutrition at hospitals, working initially with acute care, then at the Lutheran Medical Center for six years and St Vincent’s for the last four years. Jewish Home is her first experience working in a nursing home and she embraces the opportunity. Of her previous positions, she said, “By the time you got to know people’s names, they were walking out the door.” Quaglietta is looking forward to the development of the Green House® model and the new schema for a kitchen using fresh produce on each unit. Her new role in the Green House project is designing the kitchens by working with the architects. She also will be planning the menus and the food operation. All fresh produce will go to the basement and the cooking will be done inside the unit, by the adir, or the person who cooks, does light cleaning and oversees the 12bedroom unit. Quaglietta’s favorite food is gelato and her favorite restaurant is Daniel’s, a French bistro on the East Side. As far as her personal tastes in food go, she is “game for anything.” Editor’s Note: After our interview with Quaglietta, she gave birth to a baby girl named Mia. We wish her and her family well. 6

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Activities, From Page 4

Stretch and Relax Your Body Looking for a relaxing and spiritual way to exercise? Come to the Yoga and Qigong class to learn proper breathing and stretching exercises from the instructor, Nami Lee. Physical exercise, which is wheelchair compatible, is accompanied by meditation and chanting with soothing music. For example, you will learn digital exercises, or stretching your fingers, while counting in other languages. The class meets Mondays at 11 a.m. in the Auditorium. — Staff

A Heartfelt Goodbye We would like to say farewell and good luck to Yoshiko Ugawa, our art therapy intern and beading expert, who left for Japan in mid-July. AARP volunteers, Jerry Rawlins and Robert Borden are also moving on and will be missed.

Write to Us The Newsletter Committee is accepting questions, letters and contributions. Stop by the Department of Community Life or write to: Jewish Home Lifecare, Department of Community Life, 120 W. 106th St., New York, NY 10025; or call 212-870-4940.

Photo by Terrence McCafferty, 2012 Donated by Charles, Janet, Caryn & Kenneth Kelman

Name the Cow Feeling lucky? Come up with the most original name for the bovine sculpture that adorns our lovely Garden and win $25 to be put into an account with the Café. One entry per resident; there will be a box with a slot on the first floor by the birds. Entries must be submitted by Aug. 15. Did you know that at one time cows were common here and the city was considered a cow town? In the 17th century, the Dutch kept “the wandering cows in (and the hostile Indians out),” by building a wall along what is now Wall Street, according to the book Cow Parade New York. In 2000, more than 500 colorful sculptures or a “cow parade,” painted and decorated by artists, were introduced to New York’s parks and plazas. Our cow was one of them. The winner will be announced in the next issue. — Staff

Check out Our Home Life newsletter at www.jewishhome.org/our-services/ our-campuses/manhattan/newsletter-by-residents-of-jewish-home-lifecare-manhattan 7

Our Home Life

Alberta Wright was crowned Queen.

June/July 2013

Residents Fran Sherwood, above, and Jack Friedman, left.

A Magical Night of Dancing We all had a ball at the Prom. The joint was jumpin’ as wheel chairs went round and round to the rhythms of live entertainment. The ladies had been to make-up artists, the gents were wearing cardboard tuxes and top hats. Ladies wore donated scarves and jewelry. We had two sets of dancers, swing and Spanish. Refreshments were served. Alberta Wright and Arthur Garelick were crowned King and Queen of the Ball and were wheeled around the floor. (Last year’s King and Queen were introduced first: “Jimbo” Thornton and Rosalie Bergunker.)

Resident Doris Brent, above. At right, Wendy Osario and Lew Blaustein dance.

A big feature of the evening came when Lew Blaustein, the lead dancer from New York Cares, and a beautifully attired Wendy Osario, did a magnificent tango. — Helen Rausch Jim Thornton, last year’s King of the Ball. Photos Courtesy of Erin Keenan and staff

Thanks to Susan Hill of Sephora for makeup donations and volunteer make-up artists, Jennifer Repac and the Kindling Arts Troupe for the wonderful swing dance performance, Collection 18 for the donation of lovely shawls, 8 and Jewish Home Lifecare Staff who donated clothes and jewelry.