NCAL lauds nation’s best AL caregivers

Each year, the National Center for Assisted Living (NCAL) honors the skills and dedication of four assisted living professionals in its national award program. The organization’s 2015 award honorees are:

• NCAL Administrator of the Year: Beth Jarrell at Heritage at Dover Assisted Living, Genesis Health Care in Dover, Del. Through Jarrell’s leadership, Heritage at Dover has achieved high resident satisfaction scores and impressive staff retention rates.
• NCAL Assisted Living Nurse of the Year: Bonnie Zeiler, LPN, CDP at The Village at Northrise – Homestead Unit in Las Cruces, N.M. As the program manager of a memory care unit, Zeiler helped her organization reduce its off-label use of antipsychotics.
• NCAL Noble Caregiver in Assisted Living: Alicia Goatley from Riverside Lodge Retirement Community in Grand Island, Neb. Goatley, a certified nursing assistant, is praised by her colleagues for her respectful dedication to caregiving and her ability to engage staff in participation.
• NCAL National Assisted Living Week Programming Award: Kathy Pietrocola of The Chelsea at East Brunswick in N.J. Pietrocola led her community’s residents in a simulated “musical tour” of several cities to enjoy the power of music and each city’s local culture.

The award recipients will be honored at a banquet on NCAL Day, part of the American Health Care Association/NCAL annual convention Oct 4-7 in San Antonio.

Pamela Tabar

Pamela Tabar was editor-in-chief of I Advance Senior Care from 2013-2018. She has worked as a writer and editor for healthcare business media since 1998, including as News Editor of Healthcare Informatics. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Kent State University and a master’s degree in English from the University of York, England.