Making Well-Being Real
Research-informed tools to help long-term care teams embed well-being into everyday care.
Supporting well-being is essential in long-term care. For elders living in care settings, well-being is shaped every day by the people, routines, environments, and systems around them. Yet turning that understanding into consistent daily practice for every elder can be difficult without a shared framework and practical tools.
That is why AgingIN, in collaboration with Ariadne Labs, is introducing the Well-Being Toolkit and a set of supporting implementation resources designed to help Green House Homes and other long-term care teams center care around what matters most: well-being.
Grounded in research and developed for real-world use, these tools help teams move beyond good intentions and bring well-being into everyday care conversations, care planning, and organizational practice. The toolkit centers on four domains of well-being—meaning, social connection, autonomy, and security—to help staff better understand residents beyond medical needs and support dignity, purpose, comfort, and connection in daily life.
Executive Summary.
Making Well-Being Real.
Supporting well-being is fundamental to person-directed living. While long-term care organizations strive to provide compassionate, individualized care, many lack a consistent way to understand what matters most to each elder and translate that understanding into everyday practice.
Too often, important information about a person’s identity, purpose, relationships, preferences, and sources of comfort lives in isolated conversations or in the memories of individual team members. Without a shared framework and intentional processes, these insights may not be consistently communicated across shifts, incorporated into care planning, or reflected in daily interactions.
The Well-Being Toolkit, developed by Ariadne Labs, provides a practical, research-informed approach to making well-being visible, actionable, and sustainable. Rather than focusing solely on medical conditions or functional needs, the toolkit helps care teams better understand the whole person through four interconnected domains of well-being: meaning, social connection, autonomy, and security. These domains provide a common language for understanding well-being while recognizing that each person’s priorities are unique and may change over time.
Meaningful conversations are only the beginning. To truly influence quality of life, organizations need systems that support documenting what is learned, sharing insights across interdisciplinary teams, and using that information to guide care, daily routines, and decision-making. Well-being becomes not simply something individual staff members provide, but something the entire organization intentionally supports.
To help organizations move from individual conversations to organizational practice, AgingIN partnered with Ariadne Labs to develop a collection of complementary implementation resources that extend and support the Well-Being Toolkit. Together, these resources help organizations introduce the toolkit, build staff understanding, integrate well-being into existing workflows, and sustain well-being-centered practices over time.
Whether your organization is beginning its well-being journey or strengthening an existing commitment to person-directed living, these tools provide a practical roadmap for creating a shared language, consistent practices, and organizational systems that keep what matters most at the center of care.
Why Well-Being Matters.
Well-being is at the heart of person-directed care. It is central to quality of life and closely connected to clinical outcomes, staff engagement, and the daily experiences of elders and those who support them. When organizations intentionally prioritize well-being, they create environments where person-directed living can thrive. When teams have a practical way to understand what matters most to residents, they are better able to support daily experiences that strengthen connection, reinforce dignity, and improve the overall care environment, while connecting more deeply to the care they provide. The Well-Being Toolkit offers a structured, research-informed approach that helps long-term care teams build this understanding and translate it into action.
What You’ll Find on This Page.
This resource collection is designed to help organizations introduce, apply, and sustain well-being-centered practices.
Well-Being Toolkit
A research-informed toolkit developed by Ariadne Labs to help teams systematically center care around resident well-being.
Instructional Videos
Five videos designed to help teams understand the toolkit, the framework, and practical ways to begin using the resources.
Well-Being Organizational Integration Toolkit
Additional implementation resources developed with AgingIN to help Green House Homes embed the Well-Being Toolkit into organizational practice and support long-term sustainability.
Well-Being Domains One-Pagers
Quick-reference resources focused on the four domains of well-being: meaning, social connection, autonomy, and security.
The Four Domains of Well-Being.
Meaning: Supporting purpose, identity, and feeling valued.
Social Connection: Strengthening relationships, belonging, and meaningful connection with others.
Autonomy: Honoring choice, personal preferences, and a sense of control in daily life.
Security: Creating environments where elders feel safe, comfortable, and cared for.
Together, these four domains offer a practical framework for understanding what matters most and guiding care in ways that feel more human-centered, responsive, and person-directed.
Designed for Practice.
These resources are intended for:
• Green House Homes leaders and team members
• Clinical and operations staff in long-term care
• Providers seeking to strengthen person-directed living
• Organizations working to improve quality of life, staff engagement, and care outcomes
Whether your team is just beginning this work or looking to deepen an existing commitment to well-being, these tools are designed to support practical implementation.
Explore the Resources.
Use the tools below to help your team build a common language around well-being, strengthen everyday care practices, and better support elders, families, and staff.