When it comes to safety and security, The Arbor Company leads the charge in ensuring seniors and their loved ones have complete peace of mind 24/7.
In this episode, Arbor Terrace Roseland Maintenance Director, Charles Giuliano shares a bit about his role in providing state-of-the-art safety features for the residents of this spacious community located in the heart of New Jersey. With a robust background that includes roles in top-level security, law enforcement and the trades, Charles has applied his passion and years of expertise in numerous ways, from keeping families informed of their loved ones to ensuring resident apartments are equipped with all of the features that help them live with ease regardless of mobility challenges.
Team members like Charles remind us how people can truly make the difference in helping a community thrive. When you sign up for the Arbor lifestyle, you’re receiving more than your basic needs. You’ll feel connected, comfortable, safe, and above all, free to live the retirement you always wanted.
Book a tour of an Arbor community near you and don’t hesitate to reach out to our dedicated team with any questions.
Video Transcript
Hi, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of Senior Living LIVE! My name is Mary Cate Spires, and we are here on location at Arbor Terrace, Roseland. We're gonna be talking all things safety and security with our fantastic guest who has such an interesting story. I'm gonna let you introduce yourself.
Okay. Thank you for having me here. My name is Charles Giuliano. I'm the maintenance director/building operations, for Arbor Terrace in Roseland. I've been here going on five years. I have an interesting background resume of a combination of security and maintenance. I was, I'm a retired law enforcement officer from Essex County corrections facility, but I was also a institute trade instructor where I used to train the inmates for welding, plumbing, all general maintenance in general, and then hopefully job place them. After retiring, I worked in special operations security in New York and New Jersey for a few years, doing a lot of Giants games, Jets games, New York Yankees, the Breeders' Cup horse race. Then I became director of security for the largest health care facility in New Jersey, in Lincoln Park. And then I was asset protection supervisor for corporate Walmart. And then I landed this job here. So I have I have an interesting, resume of security, law enforcement, safety and the trades.
You've lived a bunch of lives already.
I try. I try my best.
Ensuring Safety & Security in Senior Living
Well, let's talk a little bit about your job here. And, you know, one of the big reasons someone might move into senior living is to have that safety and security they might not have at home.
Exactly.
How do you, you know, help create that here?
Well, my introduction, just like this one, it does make them at ease. When I speak to the families, and I assure them of my security safety background, they automatically understand that I know the police in the town. I know the firemen. The fire department is right across the street. But they also see what we do on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, we have, quarterly, biannually, and annually with inspections, fire drills, disaster drills, continuous educating, continuous town hall meetings where we're constantly keeping them in in the loop of what we're doing, how we're getting better.
We have a tremendous camera system which we never had. And when I explained to them the state of the art camera system we have and the locations where we have every square inch of this building covered, they really feel safe. They feel safe that their belongings will be safe. The we have door guardian alarms that I have to constantly inspect at nighttime. The residents know they're secure. You know, with the combination of all of our fire drills, disaster drills, in services, my background, door guard you know, the alarm systems we have here, they you know, all of that in conjunction, they feel very safe.
Common Concerns About Safety in Senior Living
What do you think are some concerns people typically have regarding safety in senior living?
Pendants, emergency call boxes, anything for an emergency situation. A lot of families feel if their loved ones are in the room, whether it's two o'clock in the morning or whatever time it is, if something happens, who will respond? We have a system of pendants that residents wear around their neck. They push a button. It registers to the front desk. And we also have the emergency call boxes, wherever they usually sit or sleep. So in the bedrooms above their bed, couches, bathrooms, that's a big issue. And again, that's part of my responsibility to work with Silver Sphere. That's the company we use to monitor these devices, make sure that the batteries are are good, the devices aren't faulty, and that's another inspection that I do on a on a daily and weekly basis.
Comparing Senior Living to Home Living
Yeah. We talked about it just slightly a little bit where a big reason a lot of people will move into senior living is because of the safety and security that's offered. Could you speak a little bit just to how living at home is different than living at living in a senior living community from a safety perspective.
Well, a lot of families that I speak to, you know, they have to work. They have to work. They're out most of the day. They don't have a pendant system and an emergency call system as we do. They, for many different reasons, they can't have a private aid living there constantly. They can't have, somebody periodically checking in. A lot of homes aren't wheelchair accessible and handicap accessible. They don't really know how to cook. There's a whole food issue, a dietary issue with them, trip and fall hazards throughout the whole house. So here we have all of those things monitored and we have the answers for them.
Some peace of mind.
Yes. Peace of mind is a big part.
Accommodating Unique Preferences for Safety
So, of course, you know, everyone's unique and has, different things that they need. How here do you all make sure that any unique preferences or things are taken care of from a safety perspective?
I'm glad you asked that question because recently, we just had somebody coming in a wheelchair and took a room like this and you could look right there at that vanity and they wouldn't be able to get the wheelchair to wash their hands because it's a straight vanity. So what we do in those situations is I remove that vanity, and I put a slant in so they can get their wheelchair under so they could reach the faucet. Also recently, we had a resident come in that has the motorized scooter, and our front doors, had hinges that close automatically. So I put magnetic lock, magnetic door holder on the bottom of the door and the wall so if she opens it, it sticks to the wall. And then when she's leaving, she could just pull it and it closes behind her. So those are two two instances right there that just recently happened that we're moving forward with to for special needs.
That's amazing that you actually think about all of that because everyone is different. Yeah. We all have different needs when it comes to safety. You know, another big part of safety is, of course, germs and, trying to to keep things as clean as possible, illness out of the way. So how do what kinda how do you approach that?
Illness Prevention & Cleanliness in Senior Living
That's a big one because that's also part of my job as environmental service. I'm in charge of housekeeping. First thing we do is we definitely work side by side with our nursing department with infectious control. So first thing I do is I order and I'm in charge of, spill kits, blood borne air pathogen kits and all that stuff where if there's a spill on the ground. But I have a a unique set of chemicals that I use, that's EPA approved. It's a COVID killing chemical. They have COVID killing agents. We incorporate a checklist. I have a checklist for inside the apartments. I have a checklist for common areas that my staff have to follow and fill out on a daily basis three times a day. I also have hands free faucets in the common areas. I have hands free paper towel dispensers, and we have in all the common areas, and I have hands free sanitizing, dispensers throughout the whole building. Also in each apartment, we have a hands free sanitizing dispenser. Along with that, it's just a lot of cleaning and educating. We have, in services on hand washing. We have in services on Relias training videos. So it's basically a lot of that's a team effort. Everybody has to be involved with that, with the spreading of germs.
For sure. Yeah. We all have to think about it.
Emergency Preparedness for Seniors
You spoke to it a little bit that you all do drills, but what, what support is available to residents during times of emergency? I know we're in New Jersey, so we're not super worried about hurricanes up here, but there's obviously a lot of things that could happen.
Well, first, we definitely have disaster drills. Besides our monthly fire drills that we have, we do have disaster drills and we do change them. We just had one for an earthquake because we recently had an earthquake. We have ones for carbon monoxide poisoning. If a hurricane, a flood, if a vehicle struck a building. But I would say the biggest thing is how I handle inclement weather. What I do is I have a little bit of an edge because I live close. So I'm on call, and my job has me twenty four seven. That's just the way it is. I have my assistant. We rotate. So if I'm not available, he's available twenty four seven. Well, we also do an in house shelter. We had blizzards where I would set up rooms for staff to sleep over. I have inflatable mattresses, sheets, pillows, you name it. We'll set up empty rooms. We'll set up the model rooms. We'll set up some offices for staff to sleep here so they don't have to worry about getting in. And we handle it. I always have ample amount of snow, salt, shovels, and it's just a lot of training in services and preparation. We have a big, big, fifty or seventy five gallon, tub with all emergency supplies, extension cords, lights, batteries. We also have color coordinated bands to put on residents if we had to bus them and move them to a safer location, which we do have a safe point right across the street. We have an auditorium from the town that will allow us to go if we need it.
Wow. You're very prepared. I wanna be here in an emergency. Well, Charles, I think all of your residents are in fantastic hands here.
Thank you.
And I cannot thank you enough for sitting and chatting with me. This has been great.
This was a this was a great experience for me too and I loved sharing what we do here.
Absolutely. You should. It's incredible. It really is. For everybody watching at home, if you'd like to see more videos like this about senior living and safety, please feel free to go to seniorlivinglive.com. If you're in the area and would like to learn more about Arbor Terrace Roseland, you can go to ArborRoseland.com.
Bye everybody!
Thank you and stay safe.
