Did you know that April 16 is National Healthcare Decisions Day (NHDD)? The purpose is to inspire, educate, and empower the public and medical services providers to engage in advance care planning, to document medical wishes and appoint a healthcare proxy (Power of Attorney for the Person) to ensure that personal preferences are honored in case of a crisis. When choosing their Power(s) of Attorney (POAs), parents often name two or more of their adult children to jointly make decisions for them. That’s true both for POAs for the Person (health care) and POAs for the Estate (finances). But what happens when the siblings can’t agree what’s best for mom or dad? Here’s an example from my recent practice:
Three adult children asked me for help, because they had very different views on how to manage their dad’s current and future care and finances. Since they had been assigned as joint and equal POAs both for dad’s health care and finances, they realized that they had to make decisions unanimously, but had no idea how to do that.
Initially the siblings asked me to facilitate a couple of mediation sessions, in order to discuss various topics concerning dad’s housing, medical treatments, care and finances that had led to tensions between them. During those sessions, they made significant progress towards agreeing on a plan regarding next steps. However, at the second session one of the siblings pointed out that as their dad’s health kept deteriorating, things would change and new issues would continue to come up after they’d reached some agreements. If the parties didn’t want to schedule another session with me every time that happened, how could they learn how to reach agreements on their own in the future?
At that point, I suggested that the siblings research what kind of process other groups or people, e.g. boards of non-profit organizations, use in order to reach consensus. One of the siblings, who served on such a board and had experience with consensus-based decision-making, offered the share information about the process her organization used.
During our 3rd joint session, the siblings discussed the proposed process and agreed that they would like to adapt it for their needs, but thought it would be difficult to learn how to use it. That’s when I suggested that during our 4th session, I would use the next topic the parties wanted to address to demonstrate how to facilitate a discussion and lead it to consensus regarding that topic. Afterwards the siblings would take turns facilitating discussions about other topics they wanted to address.
At the end of our 4th joint session, we had outlined clear steps for the process the siblings wanted to use for their future meetings on their own, including preparing for the meeting, assigning a facilitator and scribe, and creating a topics list/agenda. After I demonstrated the process during the discussion of our first topic of the day, one of the siblings facilitated the discussion of their second topic of the day and successfully helped them reach consensus. Finally, the second sibling facilitated the discussion of another topic on the agenda, although we ran out of time before consensus could be reached.
We’ve already planned a 5th and hopefully final joint session, during which the 2nd sibling will continue to facilitate the discussion about the previous topic and hopefully reach an agreement regarding that issue. Then the 3rd sibling will facilitate the discussion about yet another topic, so all of them will have had an opportunity to practice serving as facilitator while I’m present to coach them. I’m very excited about the parties’ commitment to learning how to reach consensus despite their different views, which hopefully will benefit them as well as their dad now and in the future.
Do you or a friend, colleague or client have adult children who were named as joint and equal POAs, but can’t agree on what’s best for the Elder who gave them that power? Please, ask them to call or text me at 510-356-7830 or e-mail katharina@aginginharmony.com, so I can offer them a complimentary confidential consultation to explore how Mediation and/or Consensus-based facilitation training may help them work together collaboratively and harmoniously in the best interest of the Elder(s) they serve.
Katharina W. Dress, M.A., Mediator / Facilitator / Conflict Coach
AGING IN HARMONY, Cell Phone: 510-356-7830
E-Mail: katharina@aginginharmony.com, Web: www.aginginharmony.com
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