Blog

Don’t ask staff to pour from empty cups…

If we ask frontline staff to be trauma-informed without giving them the tools to manage their own histories, we are setting them up to fail—and asking them to pour from empty cups. ...more

Trauma

May 14, 2025•1 min read

Uh-oh!

F-699’s focus on identifying and addressing resident trauma leads facilities to create individualized trauma-based care plans. ...more

Resilience

May 08, 2025•2 min read

Loneliness: Epidemic and Enemy of F-699 (and everything else!)

While being alone is something almost all of us seek at some time in our lives, there’s a difference between “alone” and “lonely.” I think there might be a difference between “lonely” and “lonesome,” ... ...more

Trauma

April 30, 2025•2 min read

Help me.

This showed up in my Microsoft Teams August 2024. I was surprised, concerned, and puzzled. Was it a scam? Was the sender really the sender? If it was, were they OK? ...more

Trauma

April 23, 2025•1 min read

Word scrubbing: Unintended consequences

About a month ago, a list of words began to circulate. Words, that if found in a grant application, resulted in revocation or rejection. One of those words is “trauma.” ...more

Trauma

April 16, 2025•2 min read

Threat

I get more calls from stressed leaders these days than I’ve gotten in a long time. They all want to book coaching time. This organizational SOS comes at a time of great uncertainty for everyone. ...more

Trauma

April 09, 2025•1 min read

I’m still here! Talking about Care Facilities and that F-699 thing

Another challenge that relates to last week’s blog is polypharmacy, when someone is on lots of different medications prescribed by several different providers who may not talk with each other. ...more

Trauma

April 02, 2025•2 min read

The numbers that boil behind F-699

Enticing title, no? Here’s the skinny. According to data from Statista, approximately 39.89 million prescriptions for sertraline were written in the United States in 2022. Let’s call that 40 million ... ...more

Trauma

March 26, 2025•2 min read

Why is TIC Hard to Implement in facilities? F-699

Last month about this time I delivered a luncheon speech to about 500 members of the NC Health Care Facilities Association, talking about F-699 and the challenges. ...more

Trauma

March 19, 2025•2 min read

The Ides of March: March 15

Somewhere in the middle of March, about the 15th, is “the ides of March.” I’ve always heard it as way to explain away the crappy things that happen around that time. ...more

Trauma

March 12, 2025•1 min read

The Untyer of Knots

Back in January, I reopened my coaching practice. I’d gotten a number of calls, and while I’ve been doing one-off work with folks, I’d let it go... ...more

Trauma

March 05, 2025•1 min read

Health Care Facilities--and the current environment

Y’all remember that little series I did on F-699 citations? How surveyors are finding more psychosocial issues? Recent changes in how things are being applied? The need for all staff development as a ... ...more

Trauma

February 26, 2025•1 min read

It’s Cold Out There..

Well, we’re now in mid-February a time of year that can be cold, gray, and dirty with slushy snow. And the winter this year has been wild--who ever thought they’d see ice hockey on the streets of New ... ...more

Resilience

February 19, 2025•1 min read

How to Become Trauma-Informed in a Meaningful Way?

This is the last of my blogs about those F-tags, F-656, -699, -726 and -742. They are pretty good drivers of change. Behind that, we hope, is the driver of genuine goodwill towards the people served a... ...more

Trauma

February 12, 2025•2 min read

They called her “the Alzheimer’s in 422”

I heard this story on NPR a long time ago, and it has haunted me ever since. I’m sure I’ve changed a few points, and I hope I've preserved the poignancy. ...more

Trauma

February 06, 2025•3 min read