More than 20 years of caring for Bickford residents in a variety of roles has given Carma Harris a vast reservoir of personal experience to draw upon when faced with a challenge. One of the most common: What to do when a resident doesn’t want to take a shower.

As divisional director of health and wellness, Carma coaches health and wellness directors at various Bickford branches on how best to handle such situations. “I talk about different interventions for residents who are struggling with behavior and anxiety,” Carma says. “It’s rewarding because I feel like I’m helping.”

And because no family wants to discover on their own that a loved one is having a hard time, fostering communication between health and wellness directors and residents’ families is another key part of Carma’s role.

“I encourage the health and wellness director to be the initiator of communication versus the recipient of communication,” Carma says. “So that families have a trust level that the health and wellness director knows what’s going on.”

In the case of a shower struggle, “They have to let the families know before the families let them know,” she says. “And then, what are we doing? How are we going to make that task more comfortable for them?”

Herself an active senior—a seasoned traveler, doting dog mom and grandmother of three—Carma has a deep desire to give fellow seniors a voice in their own care.

“Just because you’re old doesn’t mean that you can’t make decisions and have interactions,” Carma says. “That’s what I tell the people who I mentor: Ask the resident. Get their input, empower them to have as much power as they can because they’ve already lost so much control.”