Our Purpose

We decided that an online toolkit would be the best approach for us to
undertake, considering our capabilities, time constraints, and teaching team +
project partner feedback. We framed our approach by drawing on current
literature that suggests that healthcare toolkits are useful and accessible. We
spoke extensively with our project partners and listened to their stories in long-term care. We gathered information and feedback to inform what we would
include in our toolkit, and why.

We want to shift the conversation and focus on families of long-term care residents. Over 40% of informal caregivers feel that they lack enough information on their loved one’s conditions to be helpful. Educated and involved families have the power to improve resident health outcomes and relieve worker stress.

This toolkit’s mission and purpose are to educate families while fostering connection and community between residents and families to amplify positive stories in long-term care. Oftentimes, the media portrays the horror stories of long-term care, and while our aim is to not overlook nor reduce the negative impacts, we recognize there is still goodwill and hard work enforced by families, communities and frontline workers of these homes. This is to serve as a toolkit to discover resources in LTC in Ontario as well as a reminder of the positive impact the communities are making in order to take care of our residents.

Our goal is for communities to collectively recognize and acknowledge the positive goodwill and hard work our frontline staff and families are doing behind the scenes and hopefully create a feeling of union between communities going through similar experiences—understanding you are not alone in this process.