Live Oak Project Vision Statement
A transformed culture of long-term services and supports systems rooted in basic human rights that cultivates well-being, relationships and community, by supporting the empowerment of each person and each group of stakeholders.

Live Oak Project Mission
The mission of the Live Oak Project is to organize a process that transforms all dimensions of the long-term care system while simultaneously helping to ensure that each person currently in a long-term care community is not harmed and has a voice and choice in the decisions that impact one’s life.

Live Oak Project Guiding Principles

• The culture that drives the transformation of the system is person-centered, cultivates community, and empowers each person and each group of stakeholders.

• Each person who is eligible for long-term care funded by Medicaid and Medicare has a full range of options about their care setting, including their own homes,

• Each person who receives long-term care is related to as a whole person, who is still growing, still learning, still with potential, with physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and relationship needs.

• Each person in a long-term care setting is entitled to the full range of human rights, including simple pleasures, risk taking in everyday life, and a voice and choice in the decisions that impact one’s life.

• Each person is entitled to have their needs for quality of life and the kind of health care they choose in a way that is appropriate to their traditional culture.

• The physical environment of each care setting supports at-homeness by providing private rooms, plenty of spacious common areas, healthy air quality, natural light, and easy access to outdoors.

• The system of reimbursement is sufficiently funded to provide high quality care and a meaningful life for each person.

• Direct care workers, including Certified Nursing Assistants, are professionals: well trained; equitably compensated; valued for what they know and can contribute; related to with dignity and respect; and have a career ladder.

• The management culture within each care setting and each government agency engaged with long-term care moves from a hierarchical top-down culture to one that is collaborative, transparent, and learning based.

• The regulatory system approaches long-term care settings that pursue excellence as partners in quality, and meaningfully enforces the full extent of the law with those that are chronically poor performing.

• The process of transforming the culture is a journey and not a destination that takes time, is challenging, and ultimately is rewarding for all the stakeholders involved, especially those people the system is designed to serve.

• There needs to be people within each system who are responsible for growing the culture that supports these principles.