1:45 – 3:00 p.m.

Reducing Social Isolation through Creative Aging Initiatives

Music, movement, and the visual arts can be powerful catalysts for resident connection, engagement, and well-being across senior living and community-based settings. This session will introduce you to arts-based programs that have been shown to reduce social isolation and loneliness among participants and to improve mood and quality of life. You’ll meet the leader of Goddard House, a Boston-based assisted living and memory support community that intentionally integrates the arts and music into residents' daily lives and sponsors programs that offer similar opportunities in local senior housing communities. Researchers on the panel will review current studies that illustrate the scope, impact, and effectiveness of these and other arts-based interventions. You’ll gain valuable strategies to help you enhance the resident experience in your senior living community.

3:30 – 4:45 p.m.

Micro-Credentialing: An Emerging Workforce Development Model

The aging services sector continually strives to deliver high-quality care despite acute shortages of certified nursing assistants (CNA) and other frontline caregivers. “Micro-credentialing” could help address that challenge. This emerging workforce development model enables direct care professionals to participate in short-term learning experiences, have their knowledge assessed by a trusted third party, and earn micro-credentials in various aspects of geriatrics-informed care. During this session, representatives from a university and a retirement community in Maine will describe their efforts to use micro-credentialing to help CNAs build knowledge and skills, gain recognition, advance in their careers, and potentially increase their wages. They’ll also explain how micro-credentialing can help provider organizations reduce turnover, improve quality metrics, and enhance residents’ quality of care and quality of life.

11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

Honoring the Care Preferences of Older Adults

When healthcare practitioners overlook the care preferences of older adults, those patients are more likely to experience stressful hospital visits, higher medical costs, and a loss of trust in the healthcare system. Conversely, listening to and honoring patient preferences improves health and quality of life, reduces avoidable costs, and helps reduce health disparities. This session will provide an overview of research from the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston—including focus groups with physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants—that illustrates how healthcare professionals are engaging in shared decision-making, navigating barriers to honor patient preferences, and adapting these strategies across diverse populations. Join us to learn how health outcomes can be optimized by ensuring patients feel heard and that their care preferences and needs are considered.

1:45 – 3:00 p.m.

Reducing Social Isolation through Creative Aging Initiatives

Music, movement, and the visual arts can be powerful catalysts for resident connection, engagement, and well-being across senior living and community-based settings. This session will introduce you to arts-based programs that have been shown to reduce social isolation and loneliness among participants and to improve mood and quality of life. You’ll meet the leader of Goddard House, a Boston-based assisted living and memory support community that intentionally integrates the arts and music into residents' daily lives and sponsors programs that offer similar opportunities in local senior housing communities. Researchers on the panel will review current studies that illustrate the scope, impact, and effectiveness of these and other arts-based interventions. You’ll gain valuable strategies to help you enhance the resident experience in your senior living community.

3:30 – 4:45 p.m.

The CEO as Culture Champion: A Leadership Imperative

A strong organizational culture is never accidental. It is shaped, modeled, and reinforced by an organization’s leaders. That culture fuels an organization’s quality and accountability because it is grounded in deeply held values such as empathy, belonging, trust, and empowerment. This session will feature a panel of aging services leaders who have embraced their role as “culture champions.” These leaders will explain how they intentionally nurture their organizations' culture by strengthening relationships among team members, elevating their organization’s brand, and aligning all stakeholders around a shared mission. An organizational health expert will be on hand to unpack the unique dynamics of culture in nonprofit aging services organizations and share lessons from other sectors that have elevated culture as a strategic priority.

1:45 – 3:00 p.m.

Rebuilding Your Marketing Engine with a Modern Mindset

Most nonprofit senior living leaders are falling short on innovation—but not because they lack vision. Instead, they are being held back by a decades-old marketing approach rooted in operations and census and built on the flawed assumption that adults 60+ are a homogenous audience. This candid session will help you rethink that approach. Two advertising agency leaders, a national marketer with roots at T-Mobile USA and Starbucks, and a senior living marketing strategist will reveal why the senior living sector is getting the basics wrong—and how a new approach could create the conditions for genuine innovation. You’ll leave with a modern playbook for restructuring your marketing function, building products for the people you want to attract, and creating brand and experience platforms that unlock growth, spark demand, and enable your organization to innovate with confidence.

1:45 – 3:00 p.m.

Rebuilding Your Marketing Engine with a Modern Mindset

Most nonprofit senior living leaders are falling short on innovation—but not because they lack vision. Instead, they are being held back by a decades-old marketing approach rooted in operations and census and built on the flawed assumption that adults 60+ are a homogenous audience. This candid session will help you rethink that approach. Two advertising agency leaders, a national marketer with roots at T-Mobile USA and Starbucks, and a senior living marketing strategist will reveal why the senior living sector is getting the basics wrong—and how a new approach could create the conditions for genuine innovation. You’ll leave with a modern playbook for restructuring your marketing function, building products for the people you want to attract, and creating brand and experience platforms that unlock growth, spark demand, and enable your organization to innovate with confidence.

11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

Elevating the Nonprofit Narrative in Communications and PR

As nonprofit organizations face growing scrutiny from federal policymakers and influential stakeholders, it’s more important than ever for LeadingAge’s nonprofit and mission-driven members to promote the value of the services and benefits they deliver to communities nationwide. This session can help. Through discussion of a messaging framework from the National Council of Nonprofits and by sharing examples of their own messaging and strategic communications that elevate the nonprofit difference, attendees will learn to effectively reach key audiences, including reporters, policymakers, and prospective residents. They’ll share strategic communications plans, talking points, interviewing techniques, and story development tips to help you illustrate how your nonprofit organization delivers critical services, drives economic growth, and strengthens communities. Learn how to cut through a noisy media landscape to ensure key points and compelling stories about your organization and the people you serve are heard.