At Brightview Wayne, every day is an opportunity to find new possibilities.
“The key word in what we do is vibrant,” says Steve McElfresh, Executive Director of Brightview Wayne senior living community. “We look at that as full of life. That’s how we approach everything in the community.”
Make no mistake: Brightview is not a nursing home designed for people who can’t care for themselves. While Brightview offers robust amenities and a range of options for care, the goal is to help residents discover ways to help themselves.
Joining a Brightview community unlocks freedom and possibilities for incoming residents. It’s not a hospital setting filled with medical equipment and intrusive, constant care. It’s a home setting, where seniors can live active lives and make their own choices while enjoying whatever level of care they need. Brightview Wayne residents live in home-like, comfortable settings while enjoying resort-style amenities like restaurants and pubs, a salon with pedicure chairs, a courtyard with a putting green, a Bocce court, and fire pit. And Brightview’s shuttle service is available for off-site trips ranging from concerts to errands and Brightview’s volunteering opportunities.
“We are working in their home,” McElfresh says. “That's how we approach it every day.”
At Brightview, residents’ lives open up with new possibilities for learning, moving and enjoyment. Residents have time and opportunity to pursue oil painting, crafts, or gardening. We have multiple residents in other communities that have started new hobbies, even exercising twice a day where they never did that before,” McElfresh says.
Brightview’s SPICE in Motion wellness program illustrates how Brightview's prioritizes residents’ growth. With SPICE, Brightview pulls in five elements of wellness—Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Cultural, and Emotional—and creates programs around them that promote meaningful, active, and positive lifestyles.
“We're going to do for you what you need us to do, and then you're going to make decisions yourself,” Mcelfresh says. The philosophy gives space to freedom and fun, with daily opportunities including exercise programs designed by top-notch physical therapists to mani-pedis at the spa or enjoying drinks and company at Brightviews’ pubs’ nightly happy hours.
“It's about being social,” McElfresh says. “Whether you drink or not, it's about the social interaction.”
In addition to nightly socializing opportunities, Brightview residents get chances to shine at special events. “We make a big deal out of the Oscars,” McElfresh says. “Residents vote on the best movie or best actor, and then see how it plays out in the actual award ceremony and we have a dress-up night for that.”
Since opening in 1999, Brightview has expanded to eight states: Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Brightview Wayne, their eighth New Jersey community, has 195 apartments, with just over half devoted to fully independent senior living and others are dedicated to assisted and enhanced care for residents with high levels of need while residents with dementia live in Wellspring village, a separate neighborhood with its own courtyard, restaurant, cafe and pub.
Brightview empowers its residents to make their own choices about food, exercise, and learning. “We bring in people for lectures and education seminars, based on the interests of our residents,” McElfresh says.
“Our communities take on the culture of their residents,” McElfresh says. “If they want to start a cooking club, a card club, whatever their interests and hobbies are, we create activities around that.”
At Brightview, listening means more than asking if a resident prefers canasta over bridge. Brightview leadership puts in time with residents to learn what they value in their lives. “We really get to know that resident, what they like, what they don't like, their whole life story,” McElfresh says. “We ask how they met their spouse, their kids, their grandkids, what are those special things that really outline their life, and what's important to them.”
While amenities like putting greens and pubs are impressive, McElfresh says that Brightview’s greatest asset is its energetic and engaged staff. FORTUNE Magazine named Brightview one of the top 100 Best Companies to Work for 2021. The staff is happy to come to work, McElfresh says, and that enthusiasm shows in the quality of care Brightview provides to residents.
“If you take business 101 you know that if you take care of your employees, they'll take care of your customers,” McElfresh says.