Bill, with tears streaming down his face and everyone in the room applauding, hadn’t walked in months. The moment became symbolic for Bedard, who had helped Bill, along with a physiotherapist, to regain his ability to walk.

"With a little effort and genuine care, staff could dramatically impact on the quality of life of their residents and in doing so also impact on their own lives in a positive and rewarding way," says Bedard.

Bedard’s epiphany was this: long term care, which was rightly moving to more person-centred orientation, could move further beyond to fully explore and celebrate the uniqueness of each individual and their respective histories. A necessary addendum to this was changing the modes of care provision to make interactions between staff and residents more meaningful.

Bedard, in memory of Bill, has developed a teaching initiative and thesis entitled “The Enrichment of Personhood in a Legacy Teaching Culture (formerly known as Long Term Care).”

The ethic of efficiency in care provision, argues Bedard, still impedes the progress of person-centred care and the development of the kinds of relationships (like the one she shared with Bill) that can be life-affirming and life-altering.

“Our present medical model of care pulls for efficiency, and does not convey to staff that personhood or even psychosocial care is part of one’s job,” she writes.

It’s also understandable, she adds, that due to the tremendous emotional stress caregivers face that they consciously or unconsciously desensitize themselves (to varying degrees). One of the objectives of the initiative, it follows, is to change care provision in social terms.

“[T]his teaching model is being created in order to guide and create awareness to practitioners in long term care to approach their charges with compassion, personhood, and to address the relationship between residents, family members, and their caregivers,” writes Bedard.

This is done, says Bedard, through concerted community engagement.

The initiative, currently in start-up phase at Meadow Park London, involves comprehensive community engagement. Focus groups and surveys with residents and staff within the home and with families externally have begun, offering insight and feedback into specific issues in care provision at Meadow Park.

The results will then be distributed to other individuals working in long term care. This next dialogue will help to produce a teaching model, says Bedard. Eventually, her hope is to find funding to implement the vision of “legacy teaching culture.”

“Building legacies in a person-centred culture focuses on the uniqueness of each person,” says Bedard. “

“Caregivers need to be respectful of what seniors have accomplished, compassionate towards what they have endured and awestruck by their strength and capacity to adapt. A good friend once said to me, ‘If you don’t know me, you cannot care for me. A person without a past is incomplete.’”