My Senior Moments

This year I've had the opportunity to be part of a team of instructors delivering a five-week webinar (10 hours in total) entitled Aging Gracefully in Community, being produced through the Foundation for Intentional Community (FIC). The second incarnation of this webinar will happen over five consecutive Wednesdays. It started Oct 26 and will run through Nov 23.

I'm teaching the first and third classes, and preparing for them has provided me the occasion to reflect on where I'm at with my life as a senior—something I strongly advise other seniors to do. I also crossed the threshold of my 73 birthday this past week, which is as good a time as any to step back and take stock.

I stepped down as the main administrator of FIC at the end of 2015, retiring from one of my two careers after a 28-year run. As it happened, I discovered immediately afterwards that I had multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer, which knocked me back for a time. After spending the bulk of 2016 in treatment (I benefited greatly from excellent care at a local hospital, and from a stem cell transplant at Mayo Clinic), I have been able to manage the cancer and recover sufficient strength and stamina to resume my other career—the one I haven't retired from—teaching and consulting about cooperative group dynamics.

This ongoing passion is something I've been doing since 1987, specializing in working with intentional communities and working with the whole person (not just the rational part). When I got a second chance on how my senior years might play out (I was pretty far down the well when the cancer was discovered in early '16 and might not have made it back), that served as a wake-up call. Colors were a little brighter, and there is nothing quite like near-death to sharpen the concentration and appreciate the preciousness of what you have. It's an opportunity to strip away the drek and prioritize the joy.

Well, continuing my career in group process was an easy call (so long as I retain solid cognitive skills, knock on wood), as that definitely brings me joy, It's my main venue for social change work, and it's simultaneous my main impetus for personal work. A hard to beat combo.

That said, my relationship to this work has evolved, and never more so than in the last three years. Let me count the ways:

(Actually everything evolves, though we are not always paying attention, or willing to reconsider things in light of new information. I have a good friend who once shared the insight, Don't you sometimes just long for the unexamined life? Hah! Personal work can be grueling! And it's sobering to absorb that it never ends—you never actually reach the top of the mountain.)

• Marked increase in divisiveness and the breakdown of cicil discourse—not just at the macro political level; I'm talking about the dynamics in communities as well.

• Social impact of the pandemic and the strain on cooperative groups as people weathered a long stretch of limiting how much they saw one another in the same room. (This has been especially hard on extroverts.)

• Discovering that Zoom can be an effective delivery tool for teaching and consulting. Not the same as working in-person, to be sure, yet more.nuanced and potent than I suspected at the outset.

• Increased opportunities to teach.

• Balancing immediate needs with strategic planning (it's hard to complete long rang projects when I manage opportunities on the LIFO inventory system).

Here's how all of this had impacted the various segments of of my work:

—Blog and articles

While I've spent markedly less time writing for public consumption the last three years, it's not because I've run out of things to say. It's because I've run out of time to write them, in deference to crafting handouts, client reports, slide shows for Zoom trainings, agendas, professional evaluations, and treading water with email (which includes a sharp up tick in student correspondence). Some of this is remunerative. Most of it is not. In any event, I'm not writing less; I'm writing differently. (Although my blog postings have been way down, I still managed to get four articles posted in Communities magazine this past year.)

—Teaching

Not counting conference workshops (I've done more than 100 in my career) I've been actively teaching since I pioneered my signature two-year facilitation training in 2003 (see below). That said, the pandemic gave a rocket boost to online offerings, and I'm along for the ride. Since 2019 I've tripled how much time I spend teaching. Fortunately, I love it, and it aligns well with my desire to be an agent for positive social change. Unfortunately, it means there's less time for everything else. (I'm even teaching an 8-part series, Learning to Play Bridge, through a local community ed program, and I love that, too!)

—Writing books about group dynamics

This is getting the short end of the stick. I don't prioritizing it, because it's anguishing for me to turn down client requests to protect time for books. My motivation is further undercut by the knowledge that pretty much everything I want to say in a book has already been captured in my blog—it just isn't organized as well as a book would be. Though I haven't given up, I'm definitely noticing that I'm not getting to the work.

—Integrative Facilitation Training (IFT)

I started this course 19 years ago and have now delivered it 16 times. It's the most fun thing I do on a regular basis. The teaching emphasizes an experiential model, where two-thirds of each weekend is devoted to students preparing for, delivering, and debriefing live meetings for a host group, who provides real issues for the students to cut their teeth on, under professional guidance. Students get practice facing live ammunition, and host groups get free outside help with sticky issues—everyone benefits.

I've noticed recently that it's becoming harder to reconcile the active needs of the host with the pedagogical needs of the course. It happens like this: hosts, understandably, want to get maximal benefit from outside help and typically select difficult topics—things where they have struggled on their own. While that is useful training for the students (coping with the nontrivial), topics that are freighted with tensions (often the most troublesome kind) require dealing with the tensions first, before moving on to problem solving, and often it's hard to effect the relationship repair and get deeper into the topic in the time allotted. Thus, students get a fair amount of practice working with tensions (good) but not so much with problem solving (which is a problem).

Most groups are poor at working through tensions, understanding how to productively work issues, or how to use plenary time effectively—all which are things I know how to do and try to emphasize when I teach. In an effort to have the group work where it needs the most help (for example, learning how to use plenary time well) the students don't get as much practice using formats that enhance inclusivity (but come at a cost of slowing things down). It's a dilemma when host needs doesn't align well with what the students need. So this is on my mind right now.

The Next Round of IFT

Incidentally, if you're interested in my thinking about cooperative group dynamics, there is no single better way to absorb (in both your head and your body) the breadth of what I and my fellow trainers have come to understand about this field than by enrolling in one of my two-year trainings, where you'll get to be in a special learning milieu for eight 3-day weekends, spaced approximately three months apart.

While the surface focus of the training is how to understand and make good decisions (as the facilitator) when responding to the complexities and complications of plenaries trying to make inclusive decisions, the utility of the training is much broader than that. 

• The context of the IFT course is understanding the secular dynamics of community, and we are committed to doing that both by discussing and analyzing community, and be being a community for the two years we are together. That means we speak from our hearts as well as our heads; we speak transparently and we speak with compassion. When stuff comes up in class—we talk about it. We teach the moment as much as the curriculum. We strive for a level of engagement and authenticity that is rarely found in this vale of tears.

• We expect everyone to be doing personal work in relationship to the materials. Good facilitation is not just learning formulaic responses, or memorizing scripts. While we offer templates, we don't teach paint-by-number facilitation; we teach heart-centered facilitation where practitioners learn to integrate thoughts and feelings, and to identify and trust their instincts.

• It turns out that facilitation training is also leadership training, as the overlap in skills and mind set are nearly identical. Thus, students can benefit from the training even if they never facilitate meetings, because it will help them fill leadership roles—in community, at work, or even in their family—with confidence and clarity. It also helps students be better followers, and better meeting participants (because they have a better sense of what the facilitator is trying to do).

Note: While I expect to continue training facilitators for as long as I can, there's no telling how much sand I still have in the upper half of my hourglass, so you might want to sign up sooner than later if you think IFT might be a good fit for you. My next training, which will be Zoom-based, will start Jan 12 and there's still room for more as of today. If this tickles your fancy, send me an email (laird@ic.org) and I'll give you the full picture.

• • •

I get it that seniors use their latter years in a wide variety of ways, and I respect that this is a very personal choice. It's not for me to tell others what to do. Nonetheless, for what it's worth, I am offering this overview of how I'm spending a significant portion of mine.

Note I have not written about the other major components of my life: time with my partner, Susan; staying connected with family and friends; indulging in my recreational pastimes of celebration cooking, duplicate bridge, solving the daily NYT crosswords, and travel (tonight I fly to Anchorage for two weeks with a community on the Kenai Peninsula—a place I've never been to before—marking the first time I will have traveled to work with a client in person in 31 months). 

While the pace of my life has changed considerably (remember, I'm half retired), I see no reason to ship my oars and drift off into the sunset. I believe in an engaged life, and that generally means sailing close to the wind. The challenge is how best to do that as conditions around me shift, as well as my capacity and physical limitations. With all these parts in motion, there is a constant need to reassess and make adjustments. It goes with the territory. For all of that, however, there is no question about whether or not to try. I still get up every morning wondering how I can get best into what the late John Lewis characterized as "good trouble."

The Gift of Good Process—All Delivered Before Xmas Morning

I'll be conducting a variety of courses from now through the end of the year, and I'm laying them out here—both because one or more may interest you, or people you know (and I'd be pleased to have your help banging the drum).

I. Facilitation Training

This is my signature two-year course, which I've been doing since 2003 and have delivered 15 times, reaching about 175 students. It will be conducted via Zoom (which I've experimented with the last two years and feel solid about, based on having conducted 15 training weekends and facilitated multiple group meetings via that medium).

The class meets for eight 3-day weekends (from Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon), spaced approximately three months apart. No prior facilitation experience is required—you just need a positive attitude, an open mind, and a reliable modem. In addition to teaching the basics, the course will cover considerable nuance about group dynamics in a cooperative setting—all of which applies just as well to leadership in cooperative culture.

In addition to receiving approximately 50 handouts, there will be a principal teaching theme for each weekend:

• Working Content
• Formats
• Conflict
• Consensus
• Power & Leadership
• Organizational Structure
• Delegation 
• Challenging Personalities

Half of each weekend is devoted to preparing for, delivering, and debriefing live meetings facilitated by students—as it's my belief that lessons are better grounded when facing live ammunition. The trainers (there will be three of us) will hold your hand throughout and be a safety net as you learn to fly.

Most students come affiliated with an intentional community, but that isn't a requirement, so long as you understand we are teaching you to operate collaboratively and inclusively.

While I am open to students from any situation and with any background, I want to make you aware of the potential this training provides when multiple people participate from the same group—it is much easier to digest and bring home the learnings when you have buddies, and much more possible to shift the culture and practices of your group when the inspiration comes from more than one voice. The benefits are geometric (that is, your group gets four times the boost when you double the number of students).

This is the most fun thing I do, passing along what I've distilled from four decades in the field. At a minimum, this course will make you a better facilitator or help you understand better what good facilitation is. At its best, it will change your life.

The new course is penciled in as follows:

Weekend I          Sept 22-25, 2022

Weekend II         Jan 12-15, 2023

Weekend III        Mar 30-April 2, 2023

Weekend IV       June 22-25, 2023
Weekend V        Sept 7-10, 2023
Weekend VI       Dec 7-10, 2023
Weekend VII      Mar 7-10, 2024
Weekend VIII     June 6-9, 2024

There is still room in this course for more students (we accept a maximum of 18). If we don't reach critical mass (12 students is the minimum) by next month, we'll postpone the start until January, bump back all the weekends and add a new date for Weekend VIII.

The cost is $450/weekend for full students (discounts are available if you pay up front) and $300/weekend for auditors. While both full students and auditors are welcome in all classroom sessions, only full students get to facilitate live meetings during class weekends, and receive detailed written comments about their facilitation. 

If you have questions or want additional details reach me via email: laird@ic.org

II. National Cohousing Conference • Aug 25-28 • Madison WI

Coming right up (next week!), I'll be traveling for work for the first time since March 2000—ending a drought of 29 months. (I used to travel once a month for work—my how times have changed.)

—Aug 25 (Thursday) • I am teaching an all-day (6-hour) intensive styled Consensus 301, aimed at helping groups who are struggling with consensus, to better understand how they might untangle and be get better results. I have been working with secular consensus for 45 years and have a deep understanding of both the problems and potential solutions. In six hours there will be plenty of time to get responses to individual questions.

Click here for details and the possibility of a one-day pass for this offering alone. I believe you can participate either in-person (best) or via Zoom (next best).

—Aug 27 (Sat) • I am offering a 90-min workshop entitled Consensus 101 (9-10:30 am), covering the basics of what you'll need to get off to the right start.

—Aug 27 (Sat) • I am offering a 90-min workshop entitled Participation (1:30-3 pm), unpacking the morass of issues that arise around non-monetary member contributions to the maintenance and well-being of the community. This topic is the single most requested that clients ask me to help with, because of its complexity. I'll lay out the key questions groups need to address in order to clear the fog.

Again, you'll have the choice of registering for just the workshops, or the whole megillah. Click here for your options.

III. FIC Webinars

Continuing an ambitious program of 10-hour online courses sponsored by the Foundation of Intentional Community, all of which have been offered once already this year, here are the ones being repeated in the months ahead. Each course will be comprised of 2-hour Zoom sessions, held at the same time of day and on the same day of the week for five consecutive weeks. For details and registration for each course, please click on the titles, which are hyperlinked to FIC.

—Facilitation (Tuesdays) • Sept 13-Oct 11

—Consensus 101 (Thursdays) • Sept 15-Oct 13

—Conflict (Tuesdays) • Oct 25-Nov 22

—Aging Gracefully in Community (Wednesdays) • Oct 26-Nov 23 (for this course only, I am part of a team of presenters, and I am only leading the first session)

—Membership (Thursdays) • Oct 27-Nov 23 (note that the last class will held on Wed, to avoid Thanksgiving—the rest will be on Thursdays)

In addition to the main entrées listed above, here are a couple of 1-hour appetizers offered free of charge:

• Facilitating Your Group Through Anything • Aug 23 • 2:30-3:30 pm Eastern

In this session I'll walk through how to handle the nasty stuff: topics that are complex and/or volatile. This is a teaser for the 10-hour Facilitation course listed above.

• Understanding How Consensus Works in Cooperative Groups • Aug 23 • 6-7 pm Eastern

The key focus here will be on essential communication skills needed to make consensus sing. This is a teaser for the 10-hour Consensus 101 course listed above.

I hope to see some of your smiling faces soon.

Support for Support Teams

In my work with cooperative group (water I've been swimming in professionally since 1987) I notice trends. In particular, where do groups struggle and what might help. Sometimes this leads to thinking about generic issues, such as communication, understanding consensus and navigating its challenges, meeting facilitation, diversity, and working with emotions (to name a few things that I offer concentrated assistance with).

I also specialize in organizational structure—right relationship between plenary and committees (or teams), and where the hot spots (and weak spots) are. I observe patterns, and I try to develop solutions to the challenges. In general I've come to the view that the big four committees that groups often need help with are:

Steering

Process—under which there are two potent subcommittees: Facilitation and Heart (offering assistance to members in interpersonal tension who are not able to find their way through it on their own).

Membership

Participation (non-monetary contributions to the well-being and maintenance of the community)

I have written about all of these previously in this blog (you can search by key word). Today I want to add a new concept that has recently emerged for me: The Support Team.

The basic idea is that members occasionally need help with meeting basic needs and may find it awkward to ask for it—especially if the only channels available are an announcement in plenary, a notice on the common house bulletin board, or with a message posted on the community list serve. 

While some do not have any trouble asking for what they need; others do. Perhaps they don't want to be a burden, perhaps they feel uncomfortable because they are uncertain about whether they'll be able to respond in kind and don't want to run a social capital deficit, perhaps it's embarrassing to discuss personal needs outside the household, perhaps fear of being turned down is too excruciating to take the risk of asking, perhaps they feel overwhelmed at the prospect of organizing and making good use of positive responses, perhaps they are unsure what to ask for and don't want to be vague or inarticulate. There are a number of reasons why putting out the call may not be easy.

The need for this tends to be episodic and can be wide ranging. It could be temporary debilitation (recovering from knee surgery) or permanent (an amputated leg). It could be acute (a bout with pneumonia) or chronic (think emphysema). While it tends to effect older folks more,* anyone can be affected. Even where there this a basic understanding that community members aspire to provide support to one another in time of need—and there is a wealth of heartwarming stories about how this has worked well (even heroically) relying solely on spontaneous personal initiative, there is also a sad underside to this, where help often is extended unevenly—mostly because members are unaware of the need or how they can help. In short, there is a dearth of coordination, where spontaneity and courage fall short. It's not anyone's fault, but there is nonetheless a fault line.

* This concept has terrific potential to be an integral part of how a community can sensitively offer substantive support for people aging in place. Just be aware that needs are not limited to seniors.

As I've become sensitized to this situation I've been thinking about what might help. The response I've come up with is the concept of a Support Team, whose job it would be to work behind the scenes to coordinate a flow of up-to-date information about household needs, shopping the situation discreetly among the membership, and then coordinating responses.

As I envision it, it would work like this:

—The Support Team would be available for any resident to approach it and discuss their household situation. This could be done with the whole team or with just a single member—whoever the resident would feel most comfortable with. The Team (or its rep) would listen carefully and compassionately, help the member get clear on their situation and the specific needs that are being requested. Note that requests will be tailored to that household's situation and can be wide ranging—anything from walking the dog at 8 am to dropping by for a chat and a cup of tea at 4 pm.

—The team would then draft a summary of the information, to be sent to all community members as a private communication, though only after its wording has been approved by the requesting household.

—Part of the communication would be a delineation of the specific things that others are being asked to sign up for. People who are willing to help can offer a one-off (cooking a pan of lasagne next Saturday) or an ongoing commitment (doing grocery shopping every other Thursday morning for the next three months), It's up to them. 

By doing it this way, people can respond discreetly, minimizing concerns about how their offer—or the lack of one—may be perceived by neighbors. The point of this is that you want offers to be made guilt-free, and minimally impacted by peer pressure. Responses can vary, depending on a number of factors: the responder's personal relationship with the requester, the responder's history with having received support from others in the past, the bandwidth in the responder's life to carve out support time for the requester, the comfort/skill level of the responder relative to what is asked for, etc.

—The team will then collate offers, clear up ambiguities, and slot shifts into a support chart specific to the requesting household, minimizing double-booking, and troubleshooting to fill unmet needs to the extent possible. Responders will be given their assignments and the chart will be handed over to the requesting household. While all slots may not be filled, half a loaf is better than none.

—The team will periodically check back with the requesting household to see if the situation has substantially changed and pass along updated information to the community as appropriate. Oftentimes community members appreciate getting updates (helping them track what's going on with their neighbors) even if they are not in a position to offer assistance. 

—If people miss shifts, the team may be on-call to assist the requesting household find a last-minute replacement.

—Annually the team could offer a summery report on how many requests it handled, roughly how many hours it devoted to the work (so that the community had a solid sense of how much the team was doing), any trends it noticed, and any ideas it had about how things could be enhanced.

It is important to understand that there would be no guarantee that all (or even any) requests for help will be answered. However, if you don't ask, the answer is always "no." It would not be the Support Team's responsibility to cheerlead or cajole; they would simply be passing along important and sensitive information accurately and with compassion—both for the requester and for potential responders.

No one would be required to use the Support Team's service; it would just be something available if you want their help. Similarly, no one would be required to respond to requests for help; it would just be an option. The Support Team would be a coordinating service intended to grease wheels that might otherwise be stuck or sidetracked on the road to compassionate support.

I'm thinking that this role might be filled by a team of 2-3 folks with the following qualities:

• compassionate

• empathetic

• good listener

• patience for working with people when they are under stress and possibly confused and disorganized

• organizational skills

• good communication skills

• discreet with sensitive personal information

• have the bandwidth to be able to respond relatively promptly to requests

• good with logistics and problem solving

• ability to collaborate well with others on the team

Anyway, that's my inspiration. If you like the general concept, feel free to tweak this in any way that you think might be a better fit for your situation. Think of it as a way I can support you and your group.

Community and Aging in Place

I spent 41 years living in intentional community. Though I left my long-established community home (Sandhill Farm) in an effort to save my marriage in 2014 (which didn't work out so well), and I've since relocated to Susan's well-established neighborhood in Duluth, my heart remains dedicated to cooperative culture. 

 

(Over the years I've become less attached to the specific form of community, yet very much committed to cooperation. If the incivility and mean-spirited boorishness of the Trump Administration does not convince you of the need for cooperative culture I cannot imagine what will.)

Although I moved out of intentional community just as I entered my senior years, that was an accident, not a strategy. As my cohort ages (we're talking Boomers), I've noticed that an increasing number of intentional communities are starting to have serious conversations about how to work creatively and realistically with an aging population.

While most communities did not think much for how they would handle growing older when they got started, that's not the case with all groups. For example, with the advent of "senior cohousing" (where no one south of 50 need apply), there are elder-friendly features built into the design—wider walkways, fewer stairs, additional space for live-in caregivers—and residents don't have to worry so much about kids screaming at mealtime or wayward Tonka toys on the pedway at night.

 

Regardless of how the community was designed, however, all communities will have to cope with an aging population if they are successful (that is, if they last long enough for original members to grow old). In the case of senior cohousing, they just don't have to wait so long to get there.

 

Because few, if any, intentional communities have been built promising members care through end of life, what we're talking about is aging in place—staying in the community for as long as possible. But what does it mean? What can members count on? Few communities define this ahead of need, and that's the main motivation for this essay—to get groups discussing this tender and important topic before the hard decisions need to be made and misunderstandings can lead to grief.

 

It's easy to understand the appeal of aging in place. Relationships are the lifeblood of community, and when groups are functioning well there is vibrancy, joy, and camaraderie among the members. It's a no-brainer that people would want to hold onto that in preference to a dubious future in assisted living.

With that in view, it is important for the community to start defining the limits of what it can provide for members, so you’ll know when it’s time to start talking about what help people can ask for, and when it’s time to start thinking about going somewhere else, because one’s needs have outstripped the community’s capacity to help.

—Hint: Don’t want to wait until you’re facing your limits to start determining them—these conversations should happen well ahead of need. 

Here are some things to consider:

A. Managing the Demographics

It will not work if everyone is infirm at the same time. While there are subtleties about where the limits are, and how to cope with a burst of needs that might blossom all at once (as if infirmity were contagious), it should be fairly obvious that the group will have a much easier time covering the care needs of 10 percent of the population, than it would if 75 percent needed that same level of attention. The former might be a powerful time of pulling together; the latter might be a horrific swamping of the boat.

—Special note for senior cohousing: This point is all the more compelling for you in that you've purposefully selected a much narrower age range to work with. Instead of a span of 75 years (in a fully-fledged multi-generational community), you're only working with 25 years. That means you have to stay that much more focused on a viable ratio of the healthy to the infirm.

 

Digesting this, there is a great deal that can be done by an active Membership Team to recruit new members that are healthier (and younger) if your community is starting to get long in the tooth.

—Word of Caution: Fair housing laws prohibit recruitment that is based on age, yet there is no law against targeting your recruitment efforts. So if you want families with young children, don't advertise for that in print; focus your outreach on Montessori and Waldorf schools, or the local chapter of the La Leche League. Go to the places where you are likely to find the values match you seek and the age range you're hunting.

 

B. Emphasizing Relationships as Security

To an amazing degree, it’s possible to substitute neighbor care for professional assistance. In most developed countries we tend to define security in terms of money or insurance. Yet community allows us to substitute relationships for money to a large extent. I’m not talking about asking your neighbor to perform surgery, but most care needs are modest and don’t require trained professionals. I’m talking about helping with physical tasks, being a buddy in going for walks (or to do gentle yoga), inviting seniors to social opportunities (like playing cards on Saturday night, or being part of a book club Tuesday afternoons), walking the dog, and driving people to town once a week.

Many will be able to live a lot longer in place if they receive a modest level of help in key areas. While extraordinary support can be sustained briefly (such as when a person is in a whole body cast for a month following a car accident), less heroic levels of support can be sustained for much longer—even years— if spread out over a large enough population, so it isn’t so much of a burden on any one individual or household.

C. Communication Support as Distinguished from Physical Support

Support can look like many things. While we most often think of physical aid (getting down high things for a person in a wheelchair; or feeding someone with broken arms), the group may commit to being a communication clearinghouse without committing to any particular level of physical support. I know one group, for example, that established a Care Committee (for any member in need, regardless of age), such that it would be available to help get the word out within the community about anyone's compromised health situation and what particular kinds of support that person was looking for. There is no promise that help will be forthcoming (individual members will respond as they are moved by the particulars of the situation); only a promise that the call will be put out, and that responses will be coordinated if the person wants that.

D. Balancing Social Capital

Because communities are comprised of individuals who have chosen to live together, you cannot mandate care. If it's “required” it will become a burden and the energy will be wrong. You want care to be given freely. This will tend to flow much more easily if the person in need has established social capital within the group—by having given substantially to the community (in terms of time and energy, more than money) prior to need. When a person has generously given of themselves to the community, the community naturally wants to support that person in return. If, on the other hand, a person arrives in the community with intent to run a negative balance (where they need more support than they can give) that doesn't work well.

E. Financial Safety Net

Despite what was said under Point B, there may be times when financial support is needed or helpful, and that too can be organized by the community. This can be done either through increasing dues to create a surplus to capitalize an Emergency Care Fund, or by asking those who are better off financially to donate to such a fund. This pot of money could then be administered by the Care Committee, working under guidance developed and approved by the plenary.

F. Trading Off One Kind of Support for Another

You cannot be all things to all people. Groups have to choose. The more money and time you give to aging in place, the less discretionary bandwidth remains for other worthy causes, such as supporting people with developmental disabilities, or providing transitional refugee housing. I am not advocating for any particular position when I state this; I am only pointing out that there are limits. The more you give to one thing, the less remains for anything else without risk of flooding the engine. 

I urge groups to discuss this and prioritize where they want their support to go, and how often they’ll review their decision.

G. Safety

When should limits be placed on a person driving, operating dangerous equipment, or even supervising others? When does it make sense to limit a person’s power in decision-making because of deteriorating memory or compromised cognitive ability? Talk about how you'll recognize, discuss, and communicate about these delicate moments, balancing the need for disclosure within the community with appropriate discretion about who that information is shared with outside the group.

H. Dignity and the Opportunity to Be Useful

Even with deteriorating abilities, people can often continue to be helpful to the group if thought is given to how to set it up well, and this can make a large difference in quality of life for a person with diminished capacity. No one wants to be made to feel useless or a burden. Perhaps by pairing the senior with a younger person, or only giving them tasks that do not depend on the particular ability that’s been compromised, it will be more possible to engage seniors usefully in community life well into their later years.

If you like this idea, it could be made part of what the Care Committee handles when they periodically canvass members for an update about their limitations and needs.

Talking About Aging in Community

Almost all intentional communities do not expect to be able to provide support to members through end of life. While it may work out to provide that for some, there are a number of reasons why it may not work out in all cases. This essay is focused on what a group is likely to encounter when addressing the topic: What Are the Limits of Support for Basic Needs that the Community Can Provide Members with Diminished Capacity?

I. Asking for help
Some have no trouble being a squeaky wheel, and others would rather die first—literally. This means you have to expect that the threshold of when to ask for assistance will vary widely, to the point where some will request help with a want while others are suppressing requests for help with a need. You may have to get very specific about the kinds of support the community is willing to assist with.

II. Care Committee
In recognition of this, I think you want a mechanism whereby it's as easy as possible for people to step forward with their needs. This probably translates to a standing committee—let's call it the Care Committee—perhaps with a mandate that looks something like this:

o  Periodically canvasses the membership discreetly, to ascertain if anyone is suffering from a condition requiring assistance. 

o  When someone is known to have suffered a health setback—either temporary or permanent; physical or mental—or is observed to have diminished capacity that suggests they may need help, this committee is authorized to approach the member in question to inquire about their needs.

If it's determined that the member needs help, the committee will help develop a message (to be sent to members only) that apprises the community of the situation and makes clear what kind of assistance is requested. The expectation is that the content of the message will be developed with the aid of the member needing help, such that they approve of what everyone is being told.

If help is needed, the tasks will be specifically described and the committee will help identify a volunteer who is willing to serve as the Care Coordinator for that person.

To be clear, the community is not guaranteeing that other members will step forward to meet the needs; it is only making sure that everyone has accurate information about the situation and that offers to help are funneled through the Care Coordinator.

o  In addition to being available to members approaching them for help, the committee will have a responsibility to the community to see that rights are appropriately curtailed if it's deemed that the member's capacity has diminished to the point where they cannot function responsibly or safely. This could cover such things as exercising a right to block plenary proposals, or being allowed to drive to town to pick up kids after school. In handling this duty it is expected that the committee will work closely with family members and close friends of the member in question.

o  The committee will take primary responsibility for shepherding through community process any issues or suggested policy adjustments in the arena of support for members needing assistance in getting their needs met.

o  The committee can serve as a limited resource in helping members transition from living in the community to living elsewhere if conditions are such that the member's basic needs cannot be met if the member continues living in the community.

III. Waiting too long
This a delicate topic. As such, groups often put it off until they have members in need of help, which greatly complicates the conversations because you're essentially setting limits that will be immediately applied to individuals at or close to need (don't you love me any more?) This is an example of how waiting works against the group. It may be a tough topic pre-need, but it will be veritable hellhole if you delay policy developmnt until you need to apply it.

IV. Resources will not be evenly distributed
You have to expect the amount of resources available to a member suffering diminished capacity will be quite different from one member to another. Here are reasons why:

o  Partner in residence
It makes a big difference whether the person in question is living alone or with a domestic partner—someone able and highly motivated to supply help.

o  Money in the bank
There is also going to be quite a range in terms of the financial resources (cash, home equity, and strength of insurance) available with which to hire assistance.

o  Social capital
The willingness of other members to come forward to provide home health care assistance will be directly related to the affected member's social capital, which roughly is a measure of how much more the member in question has given to the community than what they taken. If a member runs a high balance, then the community is far more likely to be there for them in their hour(s) of need. If the person was not much engaged in community life, then that's likely to show up here.

o  Graciousness of the person receiving assistance
In addition to one's track record as a community member over the years (see the previous point) it matters how a person handles aging (and possibly pain) emotionally. For some, their spirit expands and there is a heightened sense of appreciation for the gift of assistance. They are grateful and let those around them know it. For others, their spirit shrivels and they become curmudgeonly. Those folks aren't very fun to be around and it directly impacts how much others are willing to volunteer care. (It's the same lesson that Dr Seuss so entertainingly related in How the Grinch Stole Christmas.)

• • •

Having said all this, it's important that the community be as even-handed as possible in what support it provides members in need: the reaching out to gather accurate information about needs, the appropriate sensitivity and discretion in disseminating it, the coordination of support, and the help in transition when it's no longer possible to live in the community.

Taken all together, it's a lot to handle, but I think these are the inevitable challenges the community faces and it's doable to handle them as long as there's the will to discuss matters openly and with heart. Remember, you are not promising that members can stay in the community until they die; you are just promising to do what you can without swamping the boat.

Aging in Place in Community

Increasingly, I've been asked to facilitate community conversations about coming to clarity about how much a community can stretch to accommodate members aging in place.

While most intentional communities are careful to not make the claim that they'll provide full end-of-life service (no matter how beloved someone is), there remains considerable nuance and delicacy about determining exactly where the limits of support lie. That is, when is it time for an aging member to move to a nursing home or assisted living in another setting?

Like a lot of hard questions, this one is typically put off until the community is in the situation where it needs to apply the answer, and the conversation is skewed by all the feelings associated with the particular person whose failing health begs the question. This can get messy.

To be sure, some people die in their sleep or get hit by a truck and the question of long-term support never enters the equation. Also, some aging members decide on their own that it's better to shift where they live (perhaps moving in with their adult children), obviating the need for the community to wrestle with this question. So it's an occasional need and doesn't apply in all cases.

Still, it applies in some cases, and it's prudent to be ready for it.

In addition to it generally being less expensive to continue living at home for as long as possible, it's what's most familiar and comfortable—two important quality of life factors. Further, in most cases there is the opportunity—which tends to be peculiar to community—for seniors to contribute meaningfully to the lives around them even as their overall capacity to do so diminishes. This too, contributes to quality of life and you can appreciate why people who have enjoyed the connections and sensitivity of community living are reluctant to leave it for institutionalized facilities.

As if that weren't enough, there is ample evidence today that living in community is itself healthier beyond the claims above. Witness what gerontologist Bill Thomas discovered when developing the Green House Project as a radical alternative to long-term care.

And yet, for all of the reasons that it makes sense to keep people in community as long as possible, the time may come when the community can no longer handle the load of support. How far is the community willing to go to support people aging in place? What are the markers that indicate the community may be at the edge of what it can do and it's time for the aging member to get additional support outside the community? Following are some things to discuss:

o  Deteriorating cognitive abilities (can the person follow conversations and contribute thoughtfully and constructively in meetings; is it safe for them to drive).

o  Personal care needs that exceed the capacity of volunteers to handle (bathing, dressing, laundry, shopping, grooming, feeding, cleaning, incontinence). To some extent these things can be covered by part-time professional assistance (which may or may not be provided by a member of the community), but there are limits.

o  Deteriorating physical capacity (can no longer walk, is susceptible to bed sores, can't lift anything more than a glass of water, can't climb stairs, shaky balance).

o  Compounding health concerns (diabetes, obesity, Parkinson's, loss of hearing, loss of sight).

o  For how long is it anticipated that assistance is needed (helping a 55-year-old recover from a broken leg is demonstrably different than an open-ended commitment to a 70-year-old in frail health; on the other end of the spectrum, the community may be willing to rally for a two-week stretch of concentrated hospice care—something that is only possible because it's short-term).

o  Special challenges (for example, is the person becoming belligerent, or prone to violence?)

It's important that volunteer support (perhaps organized by teams, so that it doesn't fall too heavily on too few) not be extended beyond what can be given freely and without resentment. Propping one person up while the quality of life for several others degrades is not a good long-term choice.

I recommend that communities establish a Special Needs Committee who's job it would be to:

A. Discreetly explore with members (or the loved ones of members) their need for assistance to continue living in the community. Note that this is not limited to seniors—it's open to anyone needing assistance. This would include both what the member might need in the way of support, as well as how that member can reasonably continue to contribute to the maintenance and well-being of the community. For this to work well, it's essential that the committee receive accurate, current information about the member's health and capacities, along with a commitment that the committee will be apprised of any significant changes in the member's condition.

B. Based on guidance established by the plenary (in answer to the above questions, defining the limits of what the community might be willing to offer in the way of support), the committee will see if they can put together a support team of volunteers in the community to meet the requested needs. Any team created for this purpose will exist for a specified length of time. If needs extends beyond that time, an extension may be considered, or another team may be put together—though this will be considered on its own merits and will not be granted automatically.

C. In consultation with the member (and perhaps the member's family) the committee will craft a communication to other community residents letting everyone know what's happening.

D. The committee will be available to receive information or complaints about how this support is going, troubleshooting and adjusting as appropriate.

E. If the committee believes the member's needs are exceeding the community's capacity to provide support, it will be their task to inform the member (and their loved ones) of that limit and the possible suspension of support.

F. Throughout, the committee will be expected to hold information about a member's condition and needs in confidentiality, excepting as it's appropriate to complete C above.

G. If the committee believes there needs to be any adjustment to the limits of what the community can offer members in need, it will see that this is brought to the plenary's attention for consideration.

As is implied in the job description above, it's important that care be taken in how members of this committee are selected. While the Special Needs Committee will (hopefully) not have a lot of work to do, when needed the committee will be well positioned to handle a sensitive task with discretion, dignity, and decisiveness.

What's on Community Minds?

Yesterday was the first of three days devoted to the Fellowship for Intentional Community's spring organizational meetings. We're being hosted (quite graciously, by the way) at Arcadia, a 16-year-old cohousing group in Carrboro NC. As is our wont, we buckled down to work during daylight hours, and used the evening for something more social—in this case, we invited residents of the host community to linger with us after dinner and get to know each other better in an informal setting. Happily, we had a nice symmetry: in a circle of 20 folks, eight were Arcadians, two were visitors from other parts of North Carolina; eight were FIC folks, and two were the partners of FIC folks.

The conversation lasted about 90 minutes. After brief introductions, we opened it up to whatever folks were inspired to talk about and I thought it might be illuminating to lay out what this semi-random gathering of eight community members (who are not networking fanatics like us FIC folks) chose to discuss. Our hosts introduced three threads:

I. Sustainability

As commonly happens, this topic immediately led to a focus on ecological impact, starting with energy usage. The conversation first veered in the direction of probing the pros and cons of solar panels and whether to be off grid or not (off grid has the advantage of independence and insulation from disruption in the case of utility company power outages; grid intertie means you don't need to buy batteries, which are both expensive and have a deleterious ecological impact of their own). This meandered into energy conservation as distinct from new or more benign technologies, where you can achieve much more profound savings more quickly (using compact fluorescent instead of incandescent bulbs; reducing infiltration around doors and windows; turning off lights when you're not in the room; etc.).

This morphed into vehicle use and the opportunities for members to consider shared car ownership (establishing a private car co-op) or at least ride sharing (when you're going in the same direction to work, or can manage to orchestrate multiple errands on the same trip). 

From there the conversation blossomed into consideration of the social and economic aspects of sustainability. For example, one of the reasons so many people own their own cars (which is a poor ecological choice) is to avoid the potential awkwardness of needing to work it out when multiple people want use the same vehicle at the same time for different purposes. That is, the best ecological choices often require a degree of social sophistication to make them work.

Similarly, one woman reported being drawn to live in the community, in part, because ecological impact is a core value at Arcadia. However, that woman's job is 28 miles away, requiring a weekly commute of 280 miles. If she didn't have that job, she could save enormously on travel costs—but if she didn't have that job she couldn't afford to live in her house. Thus economic needs constrain how ecologically she can live.

In short, it's complicated.

II. Aging

Like the rest of us, members at Arcadia are getting older (duh). Is the community concerned about being able to age in place? 

One thread of this examination was whether the community was at risk of having too many seniors at one time, such that it would be too much of a burden on the able-bodied to get basic maintenance covered. While some community members have created spaces in their homes where someone could live and provide assisted care, others were planning to leave the community when their health deteriorated to that place where such assistance was needed.

One woman poignantly disclosed her tenderness about reaching the point where she might need more from the community than she could give. Never mind that she's been running a positive balance in that department for more than a decade, she'd feel awkward asking others to support her operating at a giving/receiving deficit in the future. How does the community want to handle that? (Underneath the issue for a specific person—where that individual's personal history with the community would be part of the equation—is how many limited-functioning folks can the community handle at a given time? That's a limits-of-diversity issue and can be quite delicate to get out in the open—at what point do you tell someone the life boat's too full to permit one more?)

We also spent time approaching this issue from the other end of the spectrum: rather than shining the light on the growing senior segment, we considered the dearth of members in their 20s and 30s. To some extent this is an affordability issue (as the price of houses has spiraled upward in the overheated housing market of the popular Research Triangle area). 

This led to a discussion about whether the community would be better off with limited equity agreements (where leaving members would limit sale prices to what they paid, adjusted for cost of living increases) or market rate agreements (which is what they have now at Arcadia and is part of the reason that younger folks find the community out of their price range). With limited equity it would be easier for young folks to buy homes, yet the departing people would be losing flexibility as they wouldn't be selling their Arcadia home for the money they'd need to buy a comparable replacement.

I mentioned that some communities have creatively dealt with this by setting aside a portion of their monthly HOA dues in a fund that can be used for bridge loans available to new folks who cannot otherwise scrape together a down payment. [See my blog of Feb 14, Doing the Heavy Lifting on Affordability for more on this.]

III. Participation

Finally, we took a swipe at the array of issues that arise from some residents being perceived to be doing less for the community than others. In addition to the awkwardness associated with people pulling unevenly on the oars, there tends to be ambiguity about expectations and uncertainty about how to address both hard feelings.

Some of the concern is that everyone may not be contributing equally to the maintenance of the community, or at least not equally now (while you may have done yeoman service in the past, what have you done for the community lately?). And it's worse than that. This concern can easily expand to include social contributions—where bringing chicken soup to sick neighbors counts just as much as washing dishes after potluck dinner; where taking the neighborhood kids on a nature walk may mean as much as raking leaves.

We asked the Arcadians in the room what they knew about why people weren't more involved in community life, the better to know if there was anything that could be done about it. We suggested that they were likely to enjoy much more success if they tried enticing the reticent with outrageous fun, rather than hoping they'd step forward in response to venting.

• • •

One of the interesting things about the evening was that there were no surprises for us Fellowship folks about the topics selected. All three of these aspects of group living are bread and butter issues (about which we try to make sure we offer workshops whenever we hold events—such as our Art of Community weekend queued up for Sept 21-23 in Occidental CA).

It turned out that the non-fanatics wanted to discuss the same things the fanatics are interested in, which was comforting. While it may be well and good to not be reverent all the time—as an activist you're often out there on the edge, shaking things up—it's highly desirable to be relevant most of the time—directing energy toward the questions that everyone recognizes as the tough ones.

Well-Aged Beef

I was recently in a conversation with about a dozen folks who got together to discuss aging in community. It's a tricky topic.

Mostly, when people start an intentional community they're thinking about how to meet the needs that members have in the here and now—not necessarily anticipating the challenges that will come over time, as the community succeeds. At the outset, members are much more focused on survival than on how needs will morph with an aging population.

On the one hand, you can never fully prepare for what the future will bring, and perhaps the best strategy is figuring out how to make it as easy as possible to periodically reassess and make adjustments to evolving conditions. On the other, getting older is not an option in the same way that you can buy a new car or a better washing machine, so why wait? While there's considerable variety about how rapidly and gracefully people age, it's irrefutably a one-way street.

Physical capacity will inevitably deteriorate; recovery from minor traumas will take longer; stamina will degrade; there will a higher incidence of health challenges. Sometimes dementia is a factor. While these are tender topics in their own right, the conversations are made much harder to approach for two complicating factors:

a) We are steeped in a culture that tends to deny death and fears being put on the back shelf in our final years. As a result, there's a lot of whistling in the dark and a general reluctance to look aging straight in the eye.

b) We're afraid to come across as needy, and even if we can find the courage to ask for what we want, it's terrifying to face the possibility that we might be turned down. Some prefer to not ask.

Community generally offers better prospects for aging than what's available for all but the rich in the mainstream culture. There is, for example, strong evidence to suggest that quality of life in the end years can be dramatically enhanced by:
o Being active, both mentally and physically—in community there's always plenty going on.
o Continuing to contribute in useful ways—in community there are myriad ways that seniors can keep an oar in the water; maybe they can't pull as hard as they used to but there are many tasks that don't require the strength of youth to be genuinely contributing (cold turkey retirement is often a death sentence unless the retiree is self-reliant, resourceful about reinventing themselves, or has established outside interests).
o Having meaningful social relationships—in community, seniors can have connections that are valued across the entire age spectrum, enriching lives in both directions.
o If there are many people involved in home care support, it needn't be such a strain on any one person—in community this broad base of support is far more available.

• • •

While this is good news and community tends to make things better, it does not eliminate challenges, or stop aging. You've still got to talk about it, and what came out in the recent discussion was how difficult that was to accomplish—even in community.

Several people reported, with poignancy, how difficult it was to get traction on this topic in their home communities. In one group, when a cadre of folks who were 55 and up asked for a plenary focus on the needs of their aging cohort, the younger crowd either skipped that conversation or else allowed the topic to die without supporting agreements about what might be done. Ouch! By the time these folks were sharing their story with me, they had a well-aged beef about how their community had let them down, and were still licking their wounds.

Contemplating their pain and confusion, I am inspired to offer the following guideposts for how to get traction on this issue. Some of my suggestions apply generically to any tough topic; some are peculiar to aging.

—Having the conversation at all
You can't let anxiety about how people will respond paralyze you into not making the attempt. It doesn't get better as a consequence of not talking about it. In addition to hesitancy that may surface among the seniors, the younger folks may also collude to avoid the topic, for fear that what will be requested will exceed what they're willing to provide, and they'll be trapped between the shoal waters of lukewarm commitments and the whirlpools of guilt (both the kind that we carry inside and the kind that are projected onto us) if they limit their support in the name of tough love. It can get messy.

—Navigating the emotional mine field
In addition to the potential for guilt trips and martyr candidacy, aging folks can be in denial about their declining abilities (it's not easy to see clearly through the distorting vapors exuded by fear of loss on control; loss of dignity; loss of relationship).

If anyone in the conversation presents in serious distress, it's important (essential?) that you first bridge to that person's emotional reality—even when they're lashing out. In situations like that I hold the image of the upset person as drowning. While they may hurt people as they're thrashing about, they may be totally oblivious to that as they struggle for oxygen. You can accurately hold their feelings without necessarily acquiescing to any demands that are packaged with the distress.

—Making sure all the players hear what's being said
While this admonition applies to any conversation, I'm emphasizing this point because of the tendency to not near what we don't want to hear. Hint: write it up afterwards. That way, if there's backpedaling, at least you can catch it early.

—Tracking to see that agreements are kept
If people make agreements, check to see that they're following through. (If seniors with cataracts say they won't drive any more, make sure they don't. If teens agree to clean a senior's gutters each fall, see that it happens.)

—Establishing markers that indicate care levels need adjusting
Even if you assessment of today's aging needs is exquisitely accurate, conditions change. Try to determine ahead of time what the observable signs are that a person may need a greater degree of care than they're currently getting… or possibly than they're willing to admit.

—Letting the barriers down
You want the least possible obstacles to people asking for what they want. Going the other way, it has to be possible for people to say "no" and not get creamed. Without these two elements in place, the conversations will consistently be incomplete and you'll just be guessing when making agreements.

—Balancing the demographics
It probably won't work to have 70% of your population in wheelchairs. Just as it probably won't work to have 70% under the age of five. You need an age balance, so that there are enough able-bodied folks to assist those needing help. This requires looking ahead of the curve. If you wait until you can't support everyone without unsustainable efforts from the able bodied, it's too late. You have to start tweaking your recruitment profile before you're in trouble.

With smaller groups, just a few people can shift the balance. With larger groups, there's more stability, yet it's harder to turn the ship if the ages list to far in one direction.

• • •

These guideposts will not be foolproof in tackling the age-old issue of aging, but they should help tenderize the beefs.