2020
May Message
Dear Everyone:

It’s almost 8 weeks that we have been “self isolating” at home except for walks around the neighborhood and brief forays for groceries, medicine and other essentials. Nothing about this is easy, as we are away from dear friends and loved ones, unable to engage in our routine activities and missing the joy of celebrations of all kinds. Still, I remain grateful for all we do have and hopeful about our future together. Bradley Hills Village has tried to be part of the solution, bringing togetherness (via Zoom), activities (also virtual), and useful information to you. (And also groceries, when needed) We’ll continue to be there as we work our way through this trying time. If you need a friendly voice, a helping hand, we are here.

Stay safe and stay well.
Syma


2018

Bradley Hills Village made further strides this year in our community on many fronts – membership, newsletter readership and member activities.

Our year kicked off grandly with our February 2018 Annual Meeting held on a Sunday afternoon at the Woman’s Club of Bethesda, with Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh as our featured speaker. Over 100 people were in attendance and many new members joined that afternoon. We had participation from diverse age groups in our community. This event further spread word about the Village.

During the past year, membership has grown and almost everyone renewed their memberships. Our newsletter now reaches an even wider circle of interested people.

We continued to provide various services, including handyman, friendly visits, transportation to medical appointments, package pickup, and pet feeding. With over two dozen volunteers, we continue to have more volunteers than requests for assistance and we are working to find new and better ways of reaching out. We co-sponsored information sessions offered to Village members on Medical Note Taking and about Medicare. We consider educational programs to be an important service to our members.

Our activities cover a wide spectrum. Our monthly Book Club is thriving, along with other programs and activities, including our popular new Garden Club. This winter we reworked our old coffee gathering program and began to offer a unique neighborhood program, ‘Voices in the Village,’ to further create community by having a member of the community share some aspect of their life (whether vocational or avocational) with others in the community. Neighbors take turns, on a purely voluntary basis, hosting an informal get together to share their interests. We have even opened this event to other villages if a topic seems to have a wide appeal. This well-liked program replaced a previously under-attended program. 

We also held our first, highly successful Progressive Dinner in November. Members enjoyed good conversation and delicious food as they “progressed” from one house to another for a three-course meal. This event promoted closer community engagement among our membership.

We co-hosted (with various local neighborhood associations) a very successful summer picnic, neighborhood planting parties, and BHV night at Bethesda Big Train Baseball. We co-sponsored several events with other Villages and continued our Snow Shovel Brigade. We instituted a program of home visits to every Village member. We are undertaking a project with Suburban Hospital, and with other medical practitioners, to assist Village members with non-medical post-hospitalization care.

We successfully obtained grants from Montgomery County and Suburban Hospital. We have a dynamic, dedicated board of directors who meet monthly to address BHV business. Board members typically spend another couple of hours per month on projects they volunteer for, depending on their interests. Our part-time administrator has greatly professionalized our operations. We continuously reach out to the Bradley Hills Village community to welcome creative thinking about future programs, activities, and services that will enrich the lives of those residing and seeking to age in place in our community.

As part of grants from Montgomery County and Suburban Hospital, BHV undertook different initiatives in 2018: 

EDUCATING HEALTH PROVIDERS & COMMUNITY BEYOND OUR BOUNDARIES about Villages 
We are reaching out to various community health providers to educate them about our Village.

MEDICAL NOTE TAKING TRAINING

On April 25, 2018, Bradley Hills Village (BHV) and Wyngate Neighbors Helping Neighbors (WNHN) co-sponsored a medical note-taking training session. Sixteen people attended the 2½ hour long session (supported by grants from Montgomery County and Suburban Hospital). Participants were provided a 12-page manual on medical note-taking. The presenter and facilitator for the session was Mary Ann Buckley.

Overall attendees were quite pleased by the material imparted. Some insights about the session can be derived from the 13 evaluations completed by attendees.  The items mentioned as highlights of the training and other comments included: 

• Slides’ explanations
• Note-taking
• Scenarios
• Practical aspects (especially exercises and role playing)
• Hand-outs
• Discussion
• Presentation itself is a good product
• Mary Ann Buckley’s knowledge & ability to communicate and share slides with topics discussed; audience participation/ questions/suggestions; could have used another ½-hour
• Advice given
• Group discussions
• It’s important and helpful that can be useful for life and for volunteer work

Respondents indicated the following ways in which the training could have been more helpful:

• More anecdotal information about potential problems encountered
• Helpful to provide bullet-points as a guide while taking the notes
• More examples of situations to clarify roles; sample notes; sample words for situations, e.g. how to introduce self to - doc, -patient, e.g. language about leaving room for exam
• Succinct written guidelines re. Note-takers role – what can and can’t do to give to member, patient, and doctor - Have a second program?
• List of County resources mentioned in training
• More specific advice for role of Village leaderships
• More emphasis on exercises/situations (discussion) & role playing and practice and review of notes
• Actual note-taking practice
• More role-playing, especially with members w/varying cognitive abilities, more scenarios

Respondents mentioned these topics as possible future additional topics/items to include:

• Liability
• Organizing medical information
• Drafting an implementation or operations manual
• MNT badge
• Information brochure

Overall, attendees left feeling empowered. Many others could profit from this program.

HOME VISITS

Goal: As part of the Montgomery County grant and the Suburban Hospital initiative, BHV conducted home visits to BHV members.  The goals for the home visit include:

1. Learning why people joined BHV

2. Learning what services BHV members currently use and their attitudes about the services

3. Additional services desired

4. Encouraging members to complete and post a File of Life form

5. Encouraging members to have a safety check performed by the MOCO Rescue Squad

6. Encouraging members to contact BHV if they are hospitalized/seek services

 

To test the concept of performing home visits, two board members performed a few sample home visits. With favorable outcomes, BHV moved forward and convened a 3-hour orientation meeting to outline the format for a visit, review the survey form and other materials to be used, and engage in sample interviews between the 2 leaders of the 6 teams established. Home assignments were distributed.

 

Observations/Recommendations:

1.Overall, members strongly welcomed the home visits. Members appreciated an opportunity to learn more about BHV and to provide input. We surveyed and visited over 40 households.

Demographics: Most memberships are at the Associate level and just under half are at Individual / Full membership level. Both single and couple memberships exist.

The majority of members still drive at night -- just a handful do not drive at night.

2. Participation: Members overwhelmingly support the Village concept; many more people indicated a social reason over the desire for services as the reason for joining the Village. The whole range of offered activities are participated in and enjoyed by members. These activities include: book club, meetings (annual and other), walking, picnic, dog walking, coffees, lectures, movies, and bridge. Social engagement is a great success.

Almost all members stated that the village meets their expectations (although one disappointment noted by a few individuals is the lack of more volunteer engagement opportunities. One thought toward this end is to initiate a routine friendly call for members who seem to be "socially isolated".) Several members indicated a willingness to assist with a new activity. Member suggestions of other activities that might be undertaken include: gardening [strong interest], monthly international dinner/pot luck, cooking demonstration, meal exchange, wine tasting, educational lectures, bereavement counseling, household handy work, programs about the environment, walks, and workshops offering technical assistance for computer, i-pad & phone.  Also mentioned repeatedly was the desire for inter-generational events and for having a directory. Interest in the up-coming medical note-taking training was confirmed.

3. Wellness: about one in three members have had a safety visit from the Rescue Squad. Another third would want to schedule a safety check. One-third respondents will do so themselves or are not interested. Members are evenly split between already having and needing a File of Life (FoL). When not yet done, a FoL was provided to the member. Many households indicated they would complete the FoL provided to them.

Errands and transportation are the most desired services, however members in many cases stated that the village services would be invoked only if a family member, partner or other neighbor were not available to assist. Village services seem to be considered as a back-up or as a form of insurance. Members were equally divided as to whether they would contact the Village after being hospitalized. Again, this would occur mostly if other resources weren’t available. This reluctance to ask for assistance is a common problem encountered by villages. Villages strive to drive home the local availability of assistance.

Slightly more than half do not display a BHV magnet. BHV encouraged full members to have the magnet displayed. We provided more BHV magnets to members and plan to produce more of these magnets.

4. Miscellaneous: The home visit project identified a handful of members with bad emails on record, allowing for prompt remedy.

A few individuals sought clarification between a neighborhood association and a village.

Home Visit Wrap-up Meeting Strategies:

1. Need to create list-serve to outreach smaller group activities
2. Need to create phone tree for non-email members
3. Follow -up gatherings for Garden group, Concert/theater goers, Walkers. For gardeners, some interests mentioned: ikebana, bonsai, McCrillis, Landon azalea, wildlife certification.
4. Other possibilities: Birders, End of life issues, zoo talk, school volunteers, speaker talks, informal gatherings.

 

Overall, the home visits provided a strong vehicle for the exchange of information. Personal invitations could grow participation. Good communication is a key element of success.    

3/2018