Joel Cormier

Director of Sales and Engineering
Viconic Health
Milfoerd, MI, USA
  • 129-D. The Built Environment: A Tool for Preventing Falls

    • Monday, November 03, 2025

    8:30 – 9:30 a.m.

    129-D. The Built Environment: A Tool for Preventing Falls

    Senior living providers have an obligation to protect residents and staff from falls while helping them maintain their autonomy and enhancing their quality of life. This session will explore essential, yet often overlooked, tools to help you meet that obligation: the buildings where residents and team members live and work. Presenters will demonstrate how simple modifications to existing structures or new construction in your skilled nursing, transitional care, assisted living, and memory care settings can prevent falls and improve outcomes for residents and staff. Join this session to pinpoint specific elements of your organization’s built environment that can help you prevent, detect, and protect against falls and their adverse outcomes.

Christina Cosgrove

Director of Social Services
Vermont Veterans’ Home
Bennington, VT, US
  • 99-H. Assessing “Challenging Behaviors” to Identify Unmet Needs

    • Tuesday, November 04, 2025

    3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

    99-H. Assessing “Challenging Behaviors” to Identify Unmet Needs

    Are you having a bad day? If you lived in a nursing home, you might be labeled as a difficult, combative, or unpredictable resident who exhibits “challenging behaviors.” This session will highlight how the Vermont Veterans Home works to eliminate negative labels by helping team members embody compassion, curiosity, and empathy when interacting with residents. Presenters will describe how the community proactively assesses what a resident’s actions communicate about their unmet needs so team members can take a strengths-based approach to improving that person’s quality of life. Discover how language influences staff perceptions of residents, how behaviors communicate unmet needs, and how to eliminate negative labels in your organization.

Linda Couch

Senior Vice President of Policy and Advocacy
LeadingAge
Washington, DC, US
  • 121-J. Federal Policy Across the Continuum

    • Wednesday, November 05, 2025

    8:30 – 9:30 a.m.

    121-J. Federal Policy Across the Continuum

    Are you managing multiple service lines across the continuum, or just curious about the broader policy landscape affecting aging services? This session is designed for you. The LeadingAge advocacy team will be on hand to review this year’s federal policy successes and challenges. You’ll gain a clear understanding of key federal legislative and regulatory changes impacting nursing homes, hospice, affordable housing, home health, adult day services, and Medicaid home and community-based services. You’ll also hear the latest updates on legal matters, workforce development, and Medicare Advantage. Don’t miss this opportunity to catch up on 2025’s policy news and prepare for the advocacy initiatives that are expected to emerge in 2026.

Joseph Coughlin

Director, AgeLab
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA, USA

Catherine Couture

Director of Community Life
Hebrew SeniorLife
Boston, MA, US
  • 85-J. Let Residents and Team Members Reimagine the Continuum

    • Wednesday, November 05, 2025

    8:30 – 9:30 a.m.

    85-J. Let Residents and Team Members Reimagine the Continuum

    Orchard Cove, a life plan community in Canton, MA, began reimagining its continuum of care in early 2021 in response to sweeping changes in the field of aging, feedback from residents, and business priorities. This session will detail the organization’s planning and implementation process, led by a multidisciplinary group of team members and residents. Presenters will describe how the Orchard Cove team developed a health and well-being navigation program, actively promoted the well-being of residents and team members, reimagined skilled nursing, and introduced a new array of services to maximize independence and enhance quality of life. You’ll gain valuable insights to help you engage with stakeholders as you launch a similar process.

Candace Cramer

CEO
Goddard House Assisted Living
Brookline, MA, US
  • 131-F. Inclusive Planning and Design to Support an Expanded Mission

    • Monday, November 03, 2025

    4:30 – 5:30 p.m.

    131-F. Inclusive Planning and Design to Support an Expanded Mission

    Goddard House, a 175-year-old single-site assisted living and memory support community in Brookline, MA, embarked on a journey in 2019 to expand a mission that already distinguished it from the competition. This session will showcase the significant physical updates that Goddard House undertook to support programs deemed essential to that expanded mission, which calls for greater engagement with the Boston community, an increased focus on the creative arts, and renewed efforts to foster a sense of belonging for everyone. Presenters will describe the community’s innovative approach to aging and examine the inclusive master plan and evidence-based design process that have enabled the Goddard House campus to create spaces tailored to support current and future residents and programs.

Irene Cramer

Resident
Lasell Village
Auburndale, MA, US
  • 20-E. Every Voice: Creating Inclusive Senior Living Communities

    • Monday, November 03, 2025

    3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

    20-E. Every Voice: Creating Inclusive Senior Living Communities

    Lasell Village in Newton, MA, is implementing a resident-driven, employee-engaged framework called “Every Voice” that fosters inclusion and belonging by integrating voices across generations, backgrounds, and identities. This session will describe how residents and team members of the life plan community worked together to embed belonging into daily life through inclusive policies, respectful dialogue, and change-oriented programming. Presenters will offer guidance to help you build a culture of inclusion that aligns with your organization’s values, engages community members, and measures progress. You’ll return home with the tools you need to ensure that your community reflects the richness of the world while it continues working toward a more diverse future.

Kristen Crawford

Branding and Communications Director
GSI
Bellevue, WA, USA
  • 66-I. Building Your Organization’s Brand from the Inside Out

    • Tuesday, November 04, 2025

    4:30 – 5:30 p.m.

    66-I. Building Your Organization’s Brand from the Inside Out

    Building a strong brand involves more than designing a logo and developing a catchy tagline. It’s also about creating an authentic emotional connection between your organization and its consumers, team members, and stakeholders. This session will show you how to cultivate your brand from within by engaging team members at all levels in defining and communicating your organization’s core values. Presenters will share a cross-departmental game plan for connecting team members to your organization’s vision and implementing an intentional workplace culture that unites everyone around a shared mission. You’ll take home a framework for ongoing storytelling that links team members to your brand and keeps them engaged through newsletters, events, and branded merchandise.

Mark Crites

President – Managing Director
StempleCrites
Atlanta, GA, USA
  • 79-F. What Rising Insurance Rates Mean for Your Property

    • Monday, November 03, 2025

    4:30 – 5:30 p.m.

    79-F. What Rising Insurance Rates Mean for Your Property

    Today’s property market remains fractured, unstable, and increasingly expensive. This is especially true for properties in geographic regions at greater risk for severe natural disasters or other events that can cause significant damage and lead to double-digit increases in property insurance rates. This session will help you understand the current property market, how insurance rates are determined, and strategies for combating rising costs. Panelists will share their predictions for the future and outline the opportunities that a chaotic insurance market might present for your organization.

Patrick Crump

President & CEO
Morningside Ministries
San Antonio, TX, USA
  • 128-D. Weathering the Storm: Resilient Senior Living Design

    • Monday, November 03, 2025

    8:30 – 9:30 a.m.

    128-D. Weathering the Storm: Resilient Senior Living Design

    Well-designed senior living communities provide a valuable and reassuring sense of stability to residents and team members. However, those feelings of security can be threatened, sometimes in an instant, by natural or human-made disasters that disrupt daily life and damage or destroy buildings. This session will showcase practical building design and emergency preparedness strategies to help your organization prepare for, adapt to, endure, and recover from adverse events. Presenters will familiarize you with the fundamental principles of resilient building design and guide you through proven methods to safeguard occupants and structures from natural disasters. They will also examine how evolving building codes, insurance requirements, and other factors influence resilient design.

Jack Cumming

Resident
Carlsbad By The Sea
Carlsbad, CA, US
  • 31-E. Engage Residents as Partners to Help Your Community Thrive

    • Monday, November 03, 2025

    3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

    31-E. Engage Residents as Partners to Help Your Community Thrive

    Are you looking to enhance your community’s operations, reduce costs, and attract new residents? This session will help you enlist your most effective allies the older adults living in your community to support this effort. Presenters will demonstrate how to achieve lasting success by creating a living environment that inspires resident enthusiasm for your community’s mission. That enthusiasm can spur authentic resident advocacy and resident-driven initiatives that will help enhance your community’s vitality, cultivate meaningful connections, and generate heartfelt word-of-mouth referrals. Discover how to engage residents as active partners in improving service delivery, optimizing costs, and fostering a positive community image.

Michelle Curnow

Senior Vice President of Sales & Brand
Asbury Communities, Inc.
Frederick, MD, US
  • 1-A. Smart Living Showcase: Bringing Technology to Senior Living

    • Sunday, November 02, 2025

    1:00 – 2:00 p.m.

    1-A. Smart Living Showcase: Bringing Technology to Senior Living

    Imagine owning a television that uses artificial intelligence to provide social connection. You might want eyeglasses that provide real-time captions of your conversations, or a scale that assesses your risk of falling. These and other technology solutions are displayed in a Smart Living Showcase, developed by Asbury Communities in collaboration with the AgeTech Collaborativeu2122 from AARP. Attend this session for an eye-opening overview of how the showcase is helping Asbury investigate emerging technologies and understand older adults’ preferences and readiness to embrace technology. Presenters will guide you through the showcase’s collection, offer tips for implementing technology solutions in senior living, and discuss the impact of technology innovation on market perception and sales.