Cristina Llarenas, life enrichment and activity coordinator

Knowing she cannot achieve her approach to enhancing the lives of residents alone, Cristina Llarenas includes residents, families, staff and community resources in her planning and execution of events and activities. She invites new ideas and comments to enhance current or upcoming activities through weekly memos and conversations.

Cristina respectfully invites residents, volunteers and staff to share their experiences of their country, culture or life experiences. She invited residents to share about their country of origin or where they may have lived in the world. One resident shard a PowerPoint presentation about Switzerland; Cristina helped create the presentation. A staff member shared a PowerPoint about a country she worked in. At the Halloween happy hour, she invited residents to share childhood Halloween stories.

To use resources most efficiently, Cristina has a practice of cancelling outings if not enough people sign up. All the residents know this rule and agree to it. If there is an issue during an activity or outing, Cristina works with those involved to come up with a solution. For example, two residents got separated from the group during an outing. She investigated the issue with the people on the outing including the bus driver. Then she contacted family members to discuss how she could reassure them about the two residents’ safety and find agreement about what to do so these residents could continue to go on some future outings.