COVID-19 and Resident Engagement – Hear from Resident Engagement Champions

On-Demand Webinars: COVID-19 and Resident Engagement – Hear from Resident Engagement Champions

COVID-19 and Resident Engagement – Hear from Resident Engagement Champions

Life EnrichmentQuality of LifeStaff EfficiencyCOVID-19

Recorded on: 11/03/2020

Join us for a Linked Senior webinar with featured speakers Michele Tarsitano-Amato, Director of Creative Arts Therapy/Dementia Specialist at Kendal at Oberlin and Marisa Payne, Product Specialist at Prestige Assisted Living. Eight months into the unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading Senior Living providers are still working to understand and measure its impact on resident engagement. Improving and building with new sets of rules starts with leaders who tackled the biggest challenges of the pandemic and managed its underlying opportunities successfully. This webinar will focus on real life stories from professionals in the resident engagement field.

Speakers will review how the crisis unfolded for them, how they successfully adapted to their situation and where they see things going into 2021.

Participants who join will:
Understand how COVID-19 impacts resident engagement eight months into the pandemic
Learn how to update a resident engagement action plan
Prepare for upcoming changes to resident engagement operations

Michele Tarsitano-Amato
Director of Creative Arts Therapy/Dementia Specialist
Kendal at Oberlin

Michele Tarsitano-Amato is an Art Therapist Registered – Board Certified by the American Art Therapy Association and Art Therapy Credentials Board.  Michele completed her undergraduate degree from Ohio University in 1988 and completed her Masters in Art from Ursuline College in 1991.  In 2007 Michele became a Certified Dementia Practitioner. Michele has been working in the field of aging since 1984, as a volunteer, and then as employee of Judson Retirement Community in 1989.  Since 1993 Michele has been working for Kendal at Oberlin, A Northern Ohio Continuing Care Retirement Community Serving Oder Adults in the Quaker Tradition.

Michele is proud to be among the founding staff members.  In the past years she has lead the Kendal to be the first in Ohio to receive the designation by CARF/CCAC for Person Centered Care, and lead the team in receiving the designation of a CARF/CCAC certified Dementia Specialty Program without walls.  Michele has been part of a team of residents and staff who are together transforming the experience of aging.

Marisa Payne
Product Specialist
Prestige Assisted Living

Marisa Payne was introduced to senior living at the formative age of two, whose parents raised her for the next 13 years in the board and care residence that they operated from their own family home. Her unique upbringing lends itself to a profound understanding of the complexities of the aging process and a passion for active aging within the concept of wellness.​

Advancing from community-based roles as Life Enrichment Assistant for 32 memory care residents, Life Enrichment Director and Senior Life Enrichment Director for 64 assisted living and memory care residents, Marisa now serves at Prestige Senior Living as the Product Specialist in Marketing and Product Development. As well as managing the wellness-focused lifestyle product in 42 assisted living communities across 7 western states, she acts as advocate and mentor to 36 Life Enrichment Directors and 18 Wellness Coaches.​

Marisa is a proud single mother of a precocious preschooler living in California, for whom she aims to set an example of service to others, endeavors to model self-care, and hopes to instill within him respect and appreciation for his elders.