Amanda Sillars worked in nursing homes, home health, and hospice care before finding an alternative path for senior care that she fell in love with, she said.
“Adult day health care is set up to support people so they can remain living in the community happily and as healthily as possible. The entire goal of [it] is to avoid nursing homes, hospitalizations, and emergency room visits,” Sillars said.
She followed her dream by becoming a consultant for Santa Maria’s adult day health care program called the Wisdom Center, and she became its administrator in 2019. The Wisdom Center is a health care facility that allows seniors and people with disabilities to get out of the house, receive care, and socialize with their community members. It’s been serving Santa Barbara and SLO counties for 20 years and has a team made up of registered nurses, social workers, physical therapists, occupational therapists, dietitians, and speech therapists to provide a wide variety of quality care.
“We had to close the center down for in-person services in March 2020. We’ve been open since April 2021, but we’ve had to close on and off since that time,” she said. “Even during [COVID-19] we continued to provide services to their homes by delivering meals, social workers called to give support, lots of stuff.”
The Wisdom Center officials decided to have a grand reopening celebration with a ribbon cutting, live music, and catered food on July 28. It’s a free event that Sillars hopes will show people the importance of this health care alternative, she said.
“People like to come to the center; they are happy to come to the center—which is generally not the case with nursing homes. They don’t have to move or share a room with a stranger. They don’t have to cut their life down to a bed and maybe 8 by 10 feet of space,” Sillars said.
Every day, the center will go out with wheelchair-equipped shuttles to pick people up from Arroyo Grande all the way to Buellton and Solvang to come to the Santa Maria-based facility. Sillars said the Wisdom Center usually has 40 to 50 people come to the center.
“We have a capacity of 180 people and have a lot of room available. We have a huge center; it looks like an airplane hangar, it’s just massive. We [also] have pretty good COVID protocols to keep people safe. Everyone’s masked, we use social distancing, and we have a huge patio for people to sit outside and eat,” she said.
Through psychological and caregiver support, along with daily activities and meals, the team provides an individual care plan to meet the needs of each person.
“It’s such a desperately important business that supports the elderly to be happy and healthy; it’s a nice vision when life gets tougher and tougher,” Sillars said. “It’s an amazing program, and I could talk about it forever. The difference we see from when they start to six months to a year is truly astounding.”
Adult day health care programs are a rare find, too, she added, noting that the next closest ones are in Oxnard or Monterey.
The July 28 grand reopening celebration is from 3 to 7 p.m. at the Wisdom Center, 2255 S. Depot St. People can RSVP by emailing info@wisdomcentersmv.org and can learn more about the programs by visiting smvwisdomcenter.org.
Highlight
• For the first time in five years, the Lompoc Parks and Recreation Department is inviting community members to register for adult tennis lessons—which will take place at the Ryon Park tennis courts on Tuesdays and Thursdays from noon to 1 p.m. Lessons begin on July 26 and last until Aug. 11. There’s a $50 fee for Lompoc Valley residents and $60 for nonresidents. People ages 18 and older can participate. Contact the Parks and Recreation Department at (805) 875-8100 for more info.
Taylor O’Connor wrote this week’s Spotlight. She can be reached at toconnor@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 21-28, 2022.