It is vitally important for a retirement village manager to encourage the residents to be as independent as they can be.
“You can’t be everything to everyone,” says Ali Worrell, who in January became Uniting NSW.ACT’s South Coast Area Manager, with responsibility for seven retirement villages from Figtree, an inner western suburb of Wollongong, to Batemans Bay, 191km south. She also became Village Manager for Cooinda Village in Batemans Bay.
“Residents will learn when to ask and when not to. Always be honest with them, never over promise,” she said.
“You build trust with your residents and once they know and understand you, you build a relationship with them.”
Ali though said it was important to know and understand the residents as they can change when something happens in their life and it is important to be able to recognise when that occurs.
“Situations occur that can floor a resident and you have to be able to spot that and try and support them,” she said.
Of course, all residents are different.
“It’s your life to live. We have residents who get in their camper van and head off for several weeks, come back, and then head off again. Then there are residents who are happiest in the village.”
Ali loves her communities and calls most of them “beautiful”.
“One resident locked themselves out at 7pm at night. I had to go to the village and let them in,” said Ali.
“The next day the resident gave me a cutting from a cactus plant and a thank you note.”