Our Greatest Teachers

Last Thursday September 17th, we celebrated five years of service to San Diego County with several dozen of our friends and colleagues from the community. We enjoyed a beautiful late-summer evening on the promenade in Liberty Station, with food, wine, networking, and our delightful guest speaker, Marsha Kay Seff.

When we created Elder Care Guides in July of 2004, our goal was to design a care management system that does more than simply respond to the needs of the aging population. A skilled care manager can assess an unrecognized need before it becomes a crisis, and we have worked hard to remain flexible and nimble in the face of the constantly-changing needs of our clients and their representatives, and as the larger landscape of long term care undergoes significant changes. We provide services with a spirit of support and collaboration, and our community has responded.

When I asked Marsha to speak on the topic of the hidden powers of elders, she replied with the question, "What is hidden about their powers?" Through beautiful stories about her own parents, as well as the others she has had the good fortune to know through her quarter century of working and writing in San Diego's elder care community, Marsha painted a portrait of "geysers" (not "geezers") who continue to learn and teach, volunteer and contribute in their communities, participate politically, and leave important legacies to their families.

Through the years, we have learned that the challenges of aging are not something to be simply "managed," but that they are a gift, a set of strengths and resources from which we and our clients can learn and continue to grow. We thank everyone who joined us for being a part of an evening that was very special to all of us, and held those who could not be with us close to our hearts.