Hale Makua Kahului residents John Bellini and Joseph Thomas had asked to attend the Compassionate Caring training sessions in order to learn more about the staff training that directly impacts their care, as well as their daily lives. Both John and Joe thought that the classes were “really good and wonderful,” and John noted that having a combination of staff and residents in the class “took away the barriers of ‘us’ versus ‘them’” that are often seen in service industries.

The resident and staff team, with the help class facilitators, learned to problem solve together and jointly come up with solutions to very real resident complaints. The result has been a combined resident and staff effort to combat the noisy closing of hampers at night when residents are trying to sleep. After one week of their efforts to spread the word about hamper slamming at night, both John and Joe agree that there has been a substantial decrease in the noise attributed to the closing of hampers. It is results like these, which help improve the quality of residents’ lives that the Compassionate Caring program strives for.