I've traded a few e-mails with other conference attendees since I returned home, and everyone of them has shared the same sentiment - that they were disappointed that the conference had to end! There was an energy in that building that I haven't experienced before, and one that each and every one of us needs to recreate in whatever setting we are in.
Sharing our thoughts, our triumphs and our challenges with each other in a forum like this will help to keep that energy and passion going.  Thanks again to every one who organized this event, it came at a time when I personally needed a shot of "what can be" to keep me going.  This journey isn't easy, but I think Joe's plenary session got to the heart of what our work should always be about, and what is so easy to forget.  It's about the relationships!! Everyone of us has a "Miss Parmalee" somehwere in our career, and wether we know it or not, that relationship teaches us all we need to know as leaders of this movement.  The challange is in having the courage to live what we've learned.  All of us sharing together like we did in Philly helps to give me that courage. Let's keep it going here....
(I know, i ramble a lot..... :) )

As I flew home, departing regretfully early from the Pioneer Conference, I was reading a book called "The Tender Bar" about a how a young boy without a father in his life was tenderly influenced by a bunch of men who were as my mother would say "barhounds". We were in a "warm hotel" literally overwhelmed by the heat in Philadelphia. It's the first time I haven't been overly chilled by air conditioning at a conference. It was also a "warm" hotel filled with the warmth, spirit and energy of the Pioneers.

I first attended a Pioneer Conference in Chicago and was underwhelmed by how little people were doing to change their cultures. This time I heard more and more from those around me about what they were changing, what distressed them about their settings and what they were doing about it.

It warmed my heart. Nora

There is nothing like being in community with 750 people who all want to change the culture of aging!  This year I chose to attend sessions where elders themselves were the speakers, and sessions on elder co-housing.  They were all very thought provoking.  The message was consistently clear--that even when we are trying in our hearts to treat people as individuals, there continues to be subtle (and less subtle!) ways we are treating "consumers" differently.  I want to particularly thank Dr. Richard Taylor who presented in the session called the Citizen Voice for making this point so eloquently.  

Next year will be our tenth anniversary--so next year's conference will not only bring us together again--but will be cause for great celebration!

This was my first Pioneer Conference and, for me, it was a brief glimpse of the future.  Meeting and talking with so many people so determined to make the changes in long-term care that we as residents, families, and friends know are so desperately needed did truly give me hope.

As I sit here today at 9:53 waiting until 10:30 AM to leave for the nursing home to pick up my mother-in-law for a day of shopping and lunch, I am reminded once again of just how far we still need to travel on this journey of resident-directed care.  Why are we waiting?  She is ready.  We are ready.  But, her medications, including her pain medications, are not due until 11 AM.  In Maryland, at least, there is A Rule.  That Rule says that the nursing home can't hand her, or us, her 11:00 medications to take with her.  To do that, we'd have needed to let the nursing home know yesterday that we would be going out today.  We need to make an appointment for her to leave the facility if she's to take her medications with her.  Now, we must wait until she's received them before we can leave.  So, we schedule our lives with her around the medication schedule.  Not only has she been "institutionalized",  we have also been "institutionalized".  

There weren't many residents, families, or friends at the Pioneer Network Conference this year.  For us, though, Culture Change offers the only real way out of these restrictive and regimented Rules.   We look forward to joining this movement toward freedom.

Kate