Anam Chara creates communities for elderly

BOULDER – In an ancient Celtic tradition, anam chara, Gaelic for “soul friend,” described a woman who served as a midwife in all major life passages.

In Boulder and Denver, Anam Chara describes residential-care homes that do what ancient Celtic midwives did – with a focus on the passages of elders.

Peggy Quinn founded Anam Chara, a nonprofit 501 c (3) organization, 20 years ago.

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Rocky Mountain Health Plans (RMHP), part of the UnitedHealthcare family, has pledged its commitment to uplift these communities through substantial investments in organizations addressing the distinct needs of our communities.

Her direction to bring a contemporary approach to the anam chara tradition into the world came from people like Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, world-renowned for her work on death and dying. “I had no money, was divorced and had three children,” Quinn said. “Elisabeth said to just start with one person.”

Quinn did that and since has grown the organization.

Today Quinn runs two neighborhood-based homes that create holistic communities for elders. One home is in Boulder, and the other is in Denver.

“We become their extended family through community living,” she said.

“The biggest disease of elders is isolation and loneliness,” Quinn explained. “Twenty years ago we were the first to let them die in the homes rather than move them to nursing homes.”

“We put people on Medicaid when their money runs out rather than sending them to nursing homes,´ said Rahima Baldwin Dancy, administrative director of Anam Chara.

The monthly cost for individuals to live in Anam Chara homes is about $4,500, according to Baldwin Dancy. “We charge $1,600 up to that amount,” she added. “That’s the problem.”

Anam Chara operates on an annual budget of $400,000. As of September, the end of the organization’s fiscal year, funds are $30,000 short of what’s needed.

Quinn’s family has generally covered the difference or she’s refinanced the two houses to make ends meet.
“I’ve come onboard to help the organization expand rather than to be in the state of ‘oh my gosh’ all the time,” Baldwin Dancy said.

The Denver and Boulder homes each can manage about 10 people. Boulder’s assisted-living home currently has spaces available.

Quinn defines the homes as a too-well-kept secret, stressing the need for new residents in Boulder as well as for community involvement and funding.

Current funding comes from various sources including the Millennium Trust, a permanent fund of The Community Foundation serving Boulder County.

“Our staff is medically trained to assist with medications, and we have medical doctors come into the homes as well as naturopath doctors and gerontology psychiatrists,” Quinn said.

In addition to full medical services and therapies, the spectrum of Anam Chara Homes includes alternative healing modalities like massage, homeopathy, cranial sacral and acupuncture. Medical intuitives, psychic counselors who specialize in perceiving information concerning the body, are sometimes involved as well.
“We work with modalities that integrate Western medicine with the anam chara tradition of healing,” Quinn said. “These other things address the more subtle bodies of emotional and spiritual pain.”

Gardening, dance, painting and cooking – in a group environment that resembles the dynamics of a family – nurture the emotions of aging residents, according to Quinn.

A life celebration is held for elders before their deaths to make the grieving process one of fullness rather than of emptiness, Quinn explained.

To fill in the process of a person’s death passage, Anam Chara Hospice LLC was established as a separate nonprofit owned by the Anam Chara parent organization. The hospice works with residents of Anam Chara Homes as well as with individuals living elsewhere.

One reason for Anam Chara Hospice, according to Quinn, is that traditional hospice programs tend to spend about 16 days with a dying person. Anam Chara Hospice enables residents to be attended to by caregivers who’ve already been part of their lives.

“Our staff is part of each person’s community,” Quinn said.

On average, residents live for about four years in the homes, although one member of the Denver home has lived there for 13 years.

When a resident passes on family members can decide to have a home wake where the departed is honored through ritual in his or her own bed for up to three days.

“We’ve had about 100 families go through full death passages,” Quinn said. “It helps the spirit soul of a person lay down their body with gratitude. Spiritually, physically and emotionally people can die with love in their heart.”

Anam Chara homes have at least three people working at all times. About 50 people volunteer in different capacities including the Angeling Program, in which volunteers spend time with elders doing things as simple as making cookies.

“We need to build a managing body for the boards of both Hospice LLC and Anam Chara LLC,” Baldwin Dancy said.

“This is the model our generation wants for our parents and for ourselves,” she added. “It really needs to be the model of the future.”