Pennsylvania - South Central

Moving can be an emotional experience, especially if you are transitioning to a senior living community. Whether youre leaving your family house on your own terms or have to find a new place to call home due to a health concern, moving as a senior can bring up a flood of feelings from relief to worry.   At WayForth, we understand the emotional toll that moving can take on seniors. Every day we work with seniors and their families like yours. Our team members are committed to providing compassion, respect and care to the process of moving.    We spoke to two people on our team with backgrounds in social work who bring their skills to WayForth. Kara McCallum, VP of Operations and Isabel Wilson, Account Manager were interviewed for their knowledge and experience around the emotions of moving.  Kara has been with WayForth for seven years and holds a bachelor's and master's degree in social work. Her experience includes working in mental health and with clients of all ages, including those with disabilities.  Isabel brings an undergraduate degree in psychology and a Master of Social Work to her position at WayForth. Before joining the team, she worked in hospital case management during the COVID pandemic.   What are common emotions around moving to a new home?  Kara: A move is a critical and stressful situation in someones life and some people may have a thin skin or find themselves at an emotional place that they didnt expect. They can be feeling relief, be frightened, excited or even have some amount of grief leaving a life, people or relationships. This can call come out as anger or sadness and depression.  Isabel: To me, the emotion of moving was eye-opening when I first started at WayForth. In my life, moving always meant a better or bigger place or a choice I was able to make. But for some of our older clients, moving is not always a positive experience. Some people do not want to move. Its complicated and stressful and it might mean that they have to move out of their family home when theyre not emotionally ready.  Kara: Moving is a raw and stressful time. It can bring out the full spectrum of emotions such as frustration and sadness. Things bubble up. People are tired. People may fight or not be on the same page with family members.   Isabel: With our senior clients, there is a high vulnerability with moving. Some people do not want to move; its hard to leave a family home. When you have a lifetime of things and memories, its very difficult to decide what to take with you, especially when you are downsizing.  To learn more about how WayForth can help you transition into a senior living community, read our blog here! 

Even if you or a family member are excited to be moving to a senior living community or new home, there are bound to be a mix of emotions. Moving can be stressful and challenging even in the best of circumstances.   To help you and family members navigate your next move, weve gathered a few of our favorite tips to make handling all the emotional ups and downs a bit easier.    Get enough rest and dont skip meals  In the hustle and bustle of planning a move, its important to take care of yourself. Getting sleep and making sure youre eating properly can help keep your energy up and manage your emotions.    Work the way that works for you Some people are list makers. Others do better with a more unstructured plan. Take a minute to think how you best handle large projects and apply that to your move. Use the process that feels the most comfortable for your situation.    Break up big tasks Looking at a huge move can be overwhelming. Instead, break your tasks into smaller ones. Dont try to tackle the entire kitchen in one long day; take it one drawer at a time. Youll be less likely to get overwhelmed.    Let your feelings flow  Bottling up your emotions may backfire in the long run. If you need to have a good cry or get irritated, its perfectly normal. Let yourself feel the way you feel and then you can move on to the next day or task.    Ask for help  No one has to move alone. Reaching out to family, friends and professionals like the team at WayForth for help organizing, packing and cleaning can relieve some of the feelings of stress and worry.  

As our parents age, the primary questions adult children face are (1) who is going to provide needed care, and (2) in what setting will mom or dad receive the needed care. Coming to such decisions does not always mean smooth sailing moving forward. Family members often view care issues very differently and conflicts can be further complicated when one of the siblings is the primary caregiver. Our team members find such conflicts to be quite common in their work with our clients and families. The situations are stressful and charged with emotion, worry, and exhaustionthe perfect storm for conflict and family duress.As I reflect on the meetings and consultations I have had with some of these families recently, I suspect that part of the problem is the fact that the aging parents failed to verbalizeearly and oftentheir wishes and desires related to the what if scenarios. Because their folks did not talk openly about their wishes and expectations, the adult children are often forced to guess what Mom and Dad would have wantedanother perfect storm for differences of opinion and sibling conflicts.If you have not already done so, commit to conversing with your adult children about the what ifs. Let them know your wishes and preferences. Consider the effort to be your conflict prevention plan, so that down the road, you and yours wont have to engage in conflict resolution. And be sure to have a formal caregiver agreement drafted if a family member becomes the paid caregiver. It is an important tool for many reasons, including clarifying the financial parameters of the care being provided. Doing so will prevent misunderstandings between those you love most. Open, honest communication is always the key, and we recommend it early and often in these situations.

When it comes to planning for retirement, the most important person may, probably, be a financial planner or someone to make sure that you have enough money to enjoy those years the way that you want to. However, equally as important is to make sure that you have completed your estate planning at the same time. Oftentimes people think of estate planning as a death plan, but in reality estate planning is everything before that as well. Incapacity can hit us at any time, and its imperative that you have your basic estate planning documents in place so that during those wonderful years, if you were unable to do something for yourself, somebody would be authorized to do it for you.Some basic items that we always recommend everybody to have in place is a Financial and a Medical Power of Attorney, as well as a Living Will. These documents will allow you to make sure that your financial and medical decisions can be made for you if you are not able to make them. It will avoid any fights with family members or anyone who you do not want to have access to your information and will also avoid the expense and the emotional heartbreak of a guardianship proceeding. A Living Will will allow you to make your end of life decisions if you are end stage medical. This is a period in time when two qualified physicians state in writing that there is no realistic hope of recovery, that a person will always remain vegetative, comatose, permanently unconscious, terminally ill. If two doctors state this and that there is no realistic hope of recovery, a Living Will will allow you to decide whether you want heroic and lifesaving measures or whether you want them to withdraw treatment. The most important piece is that the individual gets to decide for themselves, so that their loved ones dont feel as though they had to make that difficult decision to pull the plug or to play God. Finally, a Last Will and Testament will allow you to make the decisions about what will happen at your death and in the future, and along with your financial planner, who assisted you in making sure that you have enough money for retirement, they will, also, ensure that the assets are designated properly to go to the correct beneficiaries.Enjoying your time in retirement and enjoying those wonderful years will be much better knowing that you have protected yourself in case of an unforeseen incident or accident, et cetera. The time to plan for that is now to allow you to enjoy each and every day to its fullest and not be worried about the worse-case scenario in case you didnt plan. Enjoy those final years!If you would like to learn more about this, please give us a call at 717-844-9218.