Elder Mediation Can Resolve Family Conflicts

Family ties become more complicated as a parent or sibling is aging and nearing death. The people in your family begin conspiring and suspicions arise about each other in fear that someone is trying to take advantage of the one dying or trying to cheat the rest of the siblings. Our Los Angeles based elder law firm sees many seniors with feuding family members quite often. 
  

There are many cases reported to the National Care Planning Council about disputes between family members. Caregivers sometimes want to keep others away from the parent to avoid others taking advantage of them. Or caregivers may be taking advantage of them themselves and trying to keep other siblings out of it. Every situation is unique and none are sound for who is right and who is wrong. The problem is that amidst all the animosity, the elder’s wishes are not being met.

It is a difficult situation to communicate with one another when one child is the caregiver and the others are not. This is where having a Mediator can come in handy. Mediators are a neutral third party in your feud and can help correct issues caused by the disagreement. It’s smarter to mediate between each other with an experienced professional than to leave it to yourselves and possibly hurting ties with your siblings.

WHAT IS ELDER MEDIATION?

Mediation helps bring disputing parties together and have them negotiate solutions to their disagreements. Allowing for voices of each party to be easily communicated is the point behind mediation. It is also important to be able to establish resolutions between the elderly parents and their relatives.

Mediation also allows for the family to achieve results that work in everyone’s favor. Here are some reasons why it is important to use an Elder Law Mediator:

• Having a trained expert allows for new perspectives of the family that it could not have on its own
• Meeting together lets you preemptively negotiate problems before they arise
• The mediator can invite experts, such as care providers, to help shed light and give the family new perspectives
• Lets parents use their abilities rather than their limitations
• Encourages family members who are not involved to get involved
• Lets the parents express their wishes for everyone to hear
• Lets the mediator challenge family members and require them to take responsibility for their actions
• Creating a written plan helps make compliance more feasible.

 

There is various organizations and companies that provide expert Elder Mediators to help seniors and their families. Many of these elder mediators typically have accreditations such as, Professional or Geriatric Care Manager, Elder Attorney, Clinical Social Worker or Certified Mediator.

Mediators provide different sets of skills, so selecting the proper one for your family’s needs is important. This includes issues such as medical assessment, legal concerns over inheritance or power of attorney. Bringing the family together to communicate helps decide what exactly needs to be done and by whom.

Seniors Use Mediators to help the family plan for long term care.

Creating a care plan before its needed is a very important way to be prepared for Elder Care. Taking steps to help plan long term care are very important. First, you may want to designate a personal care coordinator for the individual to help streamline what process is going to be needed to care for the elder. It is important for other family members to be in compliance with the personal care coordinator and discuss what they all can do to provide long term care for the elder.

If communication is an issue in deciding who will be personal care coordinator, or if there is trouble getting everyone on board with long term care, a mediator may be exactly what you need to help.

If you would like to learn more about long term care planning, you can read the book “The 4 Steps of Long Term Care Planning” which is available online at http://www.longtermcarelink.net/a16four_steps_book.htm.

 Where to Find an Elder Mediator

• In a phone book, the internet, or community senior services
• A friend or neighbors reference
• Contacting your local area agency on aging
• Contact the State Bar Association

The National Care Planning Council lists Professional Mediators throughout the United States on its website at http://www.longtermcarelink.net/a7mediation.htm

Please call us for a free phone consultation or appointment  consultation to review your individual situation and determine if you would benefit from our experience and legal services. 

What you do not know CAN hurt You!

For more information go to www.la-lawcenter.com or call us at:

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