Barathaven Memory Care

For the past two years, I have been the Lifestyle Director (Activities) at Barathaven. I have to say that this is the greatest community if your loved one needs memory care. Our nursing and care staff is so skilled and compassionate, getting to know and love each resident as a person with specific needs. We have an excellent therapy team on site that keeps residents up and moving. Our maintenance and housekeeping team works harder than any other I've seen, keeping our community in tiptop shape. Our culinary team adds lots of variety and little touches that make the food so delicious. My activity department is well supported, giving us the ability to purchase any supplies we need, hire lots of great entertainers, throw multiple monthly parties/socials/happy hours, take the residents on weekly trips and lunch outings, and hire the best team of activity assistants who bring so much fun to our community. None of this is possible without a strong management team, which works so cohesively together to make Barathaven the phenomenal community it is. I truly love working with this talented group of memory care professionals. If any of my loved ones ever need memory care, I would not hesitate for a moment to bring them here to Barathaven.

I spent a year of my life at Barathaven. I began with the kitchen in shambles. It was dirty. Unorganized. The food needed huge improvements. I began ordering fresh items. Preparing honestly meals. Organizing storage. I saved the company enough on 5 months to pay half my salary finding overlooked items that weren't delivered. I had fresh foods in the staff lounge and got positive feedback from residents. I was relieved of my duties after nearly a year due to the same reason that 2 others before me were. Poor unprofessional and uneducated management. There was much potential at Barathaven. But due to the current management my job was focused more on the catering of themselves rather than for the residents. The residents deserve better. Some meals were subpar due to lack of staff training. The quality was inadequate due to time factors directly related to demands of the higher ups. My suggestions were dismissed and my decisions undermined constantly by unprofessionalism in my direct management. The residents were put second after their own personal wants. It even went as far as me being reprimanded because I spoke out against another department head writing my kitchen schedule. All the organization, leadership, and efforts that I gave ended up the exact same as the ones who went before me. They were dismissed for personal needs and wants of upper management who admitted they knew absolutely nothing about cooking. I see why the others left. It's extremely tough to care about your job and the residents when every day is a constant battle of trying to do the job one was hired for while being constantly challenged due to careless placement of close friendship in the top management positions. Unfortunately no one can change anything here until the issues are removed. The residents deserve so much better. But with only one building in Missouri corporate focuses on the many others in various states and overlooks the issues and cover ups that happened every day in order to keep the upper management happy. The staff at Barathaven, my coworkers, are amazing people. They do miracles everyday. They g out of their way to take care of the residents despite all the politics, foul practices, unfair actions, lies and daily stress thrown at them by the upper management They were the reason I never gave up. I believe in karma. And the ones that are running this place so unfairly, putting their own needs above the residents, running unfair business practices, and lieing to cover it up while watching good people who truly care get dismissed of their duties for their own agenda will definately be getting a visit from her soon. I truly hope that the residents get the attention and changes they truly need. And that this joke of a management group gets a huge eye opener on how to live a good life. They should not be managing anyone in any industry of service. I understand why the ones before me walked out And why there has been no changes that I implemented still being done. With a personal agenda ranked higher than any of the needs of the residents and a bond of friendship in all major roles of this company, I truly hope one day you are exposed. And the residents can live with everything the staff at Barathaven is truly capable of giving. It's a shame to watch so many skills of people with great intentions and a passion for what they do become so frustrated and angry at the lack of professionalism and support they need. I hope for the best for this company. And I hope that karma will be visiting soon for the sake of everyone there.

Barathaven really surprised me with fantastic associates, person centered care and an amazing community that has really raised the bar for quality. I've been to dozens of memory care communities near St. Louis. Most, by design, receive residents that have declined out of their independant living counterpart. They result in small, understaffed wings that barely meet state guidelines for care and safety. Barathaven is designed, from the ground up, as a memory care community. It has fantastic, loving staff, and hands on events that take each resident, at their own level, into beautiful moments of joy and self expression. This is the kind of excellence that others should follow, and definitely the level of care that I would want for my loved ones.

After my wife passed away while in the care at Barathaven, I was charged for an additional 14 days of room rent plus the current level of care rate. We got ZERO in return. What an absurd corporate policy I found was in the contract I signed. A giant money grab to say the least. Read every word before signing anything.