A Few Stories from Visits to Care Facilities and Elsewhere

We have been calling (in some cases, calling yet again) the Skilled Nursing Facilities throughout Southern CA, and have also been visiting the small Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly (RCFEs) - these being small ones (6 or fewer residents) in the area surrounding the museum (where Nancy was last seen).  And over the past few weeks, there are a few stories that I found of interest.

To start on a disappointing note - I am truly surprised by how few of the facilities (less than 10 percent) have an attendant that is familiar with Nancy's case.  We snail-mailed to all of these places twice - once with a letter and once with the postcard featuring an "aged" depiction of Nancy.  But it is now clear that we addressed them to the "Administrator" - the person listed in the CA database, and sent it to the address of the actual facility.  The problem with this is that the administrator is probably the owner of the house (these places are just houses with rooms set up to accommodate residents).  They may or may not visit the facilities on any regular basis, and the mail will be picked up by whoever.  The attendants are hired caregivers.  Clearly, the people we need to see the flyer for Nancy are the caregivers, not the owners/administrators.  That being said, some attendants have reported seeing either our TV ad, a Facebook post, or - the most common - "yeah, I've seen that somewhere ..."

On a happier note, a good friend happens to be friends with the manager of a fairly large chain of RCFEs here in SoCal, and the manager invited me to address all of her facility managers at a meeting today.  This was a great opportunity to ask these people to not only check their own facilities, but also to share the NancyIsMissing FaceBook page (or share on social media in other ways).  This was AWESOME!

In our visits, we happened across a larger facility that we had visited before, but went back in.  This too was a happy story because the Charge Nurse told us that her grandmother had similarly wandered, and been lost for 2 years(!).  They finally found her because she required medical attention and was taken to an Emergency Room at a hospital where they recognized her. All of our pushing of the flyers to ERs was not in vain - and in fact, we may have to look at doing it again.

I also had the opportunity to speak to the lead investigator for lost and missing persons at the CA Dept. of Justice.  She has known about Nancy's case since January of last year, and she also reports that a likely scenario is that Nancy is in an RCFE - a common place for missing at-risk people to show up.

So, it appears our efforts are not going to waste, and we'll keep at it!

LA County Approves Bringing Our Loved Ones Home Task Force Recommendations

Megan Barnes - Once again right on top of this:

https://www.dailybreeze.com/2018/02/20/la-county-oks-tracking-bracelets-for-alzheimers-patients-who-wander/

LA County Board of Supervisors to Consider BOLOH Task Force Recommendations

Supervisor Hahn of the Los Angeles County Board of Superviosors is going to recommmend to the Board that all 17 strategies of the Bringing Our Loved Ones Home task force be adopted.  This includes hiring 4 staff to implement ideas and continue looking into best practices as well as paying for the Sheriff to get equipment from Project Lifesaver. With Sheriff having the proper receivers, every resident in LA County will be able to utilize PLI technology.

This will happen at the Februray 13th meeting, and the meetings are open to the public (with plenty of seating), so you are welcome to join us.

Feb. 13.  9:30 AM 

Board Hearing Rm 381B

Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration

500 West Temple St.

LA 90012