Carla Muller, Eldercare Advisor, A Place For Mom Thursday, August 26, 2010 we had an awesome support group meeting. Our guest speaker, Carla Muller, Eldercare Advisor from A Place For Mom gave a very informative and interesting presentation about Adult Care options. The focus of her presentation was to give us pertinent information about the differences, pay optionsand cost structures of hospital/skilled nursing, home care, and assisted living facilities. Her role as Eldercare Advisor first is to assess the families needs and then make recommendations and referrals. Sheexpressed the importance of having Wills, Power of Attorneyand Advanced Health Care Directives in place for our loved ones. Myinitial contact with A Place For Mom was impressive. I found their link on the Internet while doing some research for topics to present to our group. I clicked on it, typed in my info and while I was still typing my message, a chat box popped up introducing themselves. Within a few minutes, I was being contacted by our wonderful representative, Carla. Voila! It was so quick, confidential and assuring to know that I couldget HELP so quickly! You will absolutely love Carla. With sixteen years of experience focusing on caregiving, she is warm, intuitive, concerned and yet she is such a pro, she knows what information to offer and when to do it. She’s incredible and so is A Place For Mom! Another very wonderful and caring person, Erick Dixon from CCRC (Coast Caregiver Resource Center) has agreed to be our co-facilitator. It was unanimous, she is a perfect fit for our group.CCRCis a three-county program of Cottage Rehabilitation Hospital, one of a network 11 of centers funded by the California Department of Mental Health and serves adults with cognitive disorders by helping those who care for them. Go to for more information about this great resource for the caregivers. For you caregivers, it would be worth contacting CCRC to find out if you qualify for respite funds. Thank you Ericka! We had a winner for our ‘Name the Mascot’ contest which was held on August 15 at Family Day in the Park. By the way, our mascot is a very cute black and white Shitz Tzu (stuffed toy). We had 25 entries for this contest where each child submitted a name they thought befitted our little ‘puppy’. Weput it tovote at our meeting and it was decided,his name is Huntington. Go figure. The little man who submitted that name received a gift certificate from Toy’s R Us. Our next event will be a fundraiser on Saturday,September 18 from 1:00 to 4:00 pm.at Costa de Oro Tasting Room, 1331 S Nicholson Ave, Santa Maria, CA 93454. There will be finger foods and wine and 25% of the proceeds will go to our support group for programs like our YMCA membership programand our Labyringh Workshop. Please join us for some food, fun and fantastic wine! Our next meeting will be on September 23 at Marian Medical Center, 1400 E Church, Santa Maria at 6:30. We willhave a special guest teacher for a Labyrinth Workshop where we willdiscuss the benefits ofmeditation. We will look at a short history of labyrinths and some great pictures. Then we will be able to create our own simplespiral labyrinth on paper and experience a Classical 7 Circuit labyrinth through walking, watching, or following a lap labyrinth. Please contact MelissaBiliardiabout the Labyrinth Workshop on September 23rd, for sign-up orinformation call: 805-441-5618 Posted by HDSGCCC at 0 comments: Post a Comment Subscribe to: Until a couple of years ago, Huntington’s Disease support groups were something HD families on the California Central Coast Accommodation could only dream about. Thanks to Mike Brown in Templeton and Melissa Biliardi in Santa Maria, (both are HD advocates who have affected family memebers) the CC now has two support groups. HDSGCCC is searching for people with HD, their family members and caregivers to embrace into our CC HD family. We are HD advocates and caregivers and our mission is to help all who are seeking it.