Senior living providers recognize the need for dining programs that offer enjoyable, social experiences in sophisticated environments. Yet, an attractive dining room or a casual café are no longer enough to distinguish your dining program from the competition. Instead, it’s time to consider introducing restaurant styles typically found in urban downtown areas and designing eating spaces where innovative elements and distinctive themes are reflected in menus, artwork, and dining accessories. If this feels a bit overwhelming, you’ll want to attend this session. Presenters will help you understand the latest trends in senior living dining, explore renovation projects currently underway in life plan communities, and review the outcomes of multiple resident and prospective resident focus groups.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will take center stage as an active panelist in this unique session. Join an IT consultant and two senior-level IT specialists from LeadingAge member organizations as they invite ChatGPT, an interactive AI model, to tackle senior living challenges in real time. Human panelists will begin the session by sharing their insights into how AI impacts operational efficiencies, resident engagement, strategic decision-making, and resident care in aging services. Then, attendees and panelists will engage in a lively question-and-answer session with ChatGPT. You’ll discover how AI can respond to your organization’s unique challenges and how to critically evaluate AI tools before implementing them in your organization. Don’t miss this opportunity to see AI in action.

Three years ago, few people were aware of large language models like ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) tool capable of understanding, generating, and manipulating human language. This session will explore how far we have progressed in 36 months. Presenters will provide an overview of how AI is reshaping aging services by enhancing efficiency, communication, and workforce support. They will also highlight how providers use AI to streamline operations, improve the resident experience, and empower staff. Whether new to AI or looking to refine your approach, you’ll gain a practical perspective on leveraging these powerful technologies to enhance your operations.

Are you interested in learning how to help residents, team members, and families develop a deeper appreciation for life and a greater ability to move forward after setbacks and trauma? This session will introduce you to an award-winning program designed to help everyone in your senior living community achieve these goals. Presenters will describe the SOARING Into Resilience workshop they developed and share research documenting the program’s success in helping staff, residents, and their families experience a heightened sense of belonging, connection with peers, meaning, and purpose. They’ll also offer you an opportunity to participate in immersive exercises aimed at enhancing individual, organizational, and communal well-being.

How do senior living communities maintain the trust of residents, families, staff, supporters, and partners while navigating significant organizational change? This session will demonstrate how a positive public relations initiative can help. Presenters will showcase a Pennsylvania-based retirement community that formed a holding company, became a subsidiary of that company, and then took an entrepreneurial approach to spinning off a staffing agency and home healthcare service. They will explain how the community crafted and executed a communications campaign that introduced the new entity to stakeholders while addressing their potential confusion and fear. You’ll return home with a checklist of communication materials you should develop when facing a significant change.

In 2023, Parker Health Group in Piscataway, NJ, asked family caregivers of clients enrolled in its adult day services program how the organization could better support them. The caregivers asked for solution-based information, available on demand, to help them fulfill their caregiving responsibilities. During this session, representatives from Parker and Trualta, an online platform for family caregivers, will describe how Parker responded by creating an educational learning platform, integrated with Trualta, that offers information, resources, programming, and services for caregivers and clients. Presenters will outline the initiative’s startup and implementation, staffing resources, operational considerations, and cost.

Intergenerational connections can enhance both the design and operation of senior living environments. This session will offer practical strategies to help you create meaningful and sustainable multigenerational environments that give owners, developers, and designers a competitive edge in today’s evolving market. Presenters will share a roadmap developed by the Joint Intergenerational Task Force convened by SAGE, AIA Design for Aging, and the Center for Health Design. They will unveil the task force’s new findings, case studies, and actionable strategies. You’ll gain valuable insights into the challenges you may encounter as you integrate intergenerational principles into your projects and operations. You’ll also gain strategies that can lead to successful outcomes.

Studying the characteristics of senior living communities with healthy organizational cultures can help providers shape thriving workplaces of their own. This session will showcase how a two-year workforce-strengthening initiative at San Francisco’s Sequoia Living reduced turnover and enhanced resident satisfaction. Presenters will detail how the initiative encouraged residents and team members to embrace a growth mindset that respectfully challenges the status quo, foster an inclusive environment where all voices are heard, and exercise accountability and care to increase engagement and outcomes. You’ll discover how the initiative reduced Sequoia Living’s turnover to an all-time low of 17% and improved the ”culture score” the organization receives from its employees.

True or false? “Most of our board’s meeting time is devoted to hearing management reports; directors speak less than 10% of the time.” During this session, a governance advisor will use this and other true-false statements to help you evaluate your board’s performance on the “Good Governance Index.” Along the way, you’ll explore key governance principles, including the role board members play in charting and securing the future of their organizations, and how governance structures and policies influence the board’s effectiveness. Join this session to discover how closely your board’s practices align with sound governance principles, identify policies and actions that will strengthen your board, and learn strategies for overcoming obstacles that hinder good governance.