Cantata celebrates a century of adult care services in Brookfield

Cantata Adult Life Services in Brookfield is kicking off its centennial celebration with a calendar of special events throughout 2025.

The yearlong centennial celebration will include:

•      A booth at the Brookfield Farmers’ Market throughout the season, featuring scones, other baked goods, prizes, and giveaways.

•      A Midsummer Garden Party on June 21, hosted by Cantata and the Daughters of the British Empire.

•      A Brookfield Community Festival on Sept. 13, a day-long event featuring games, food, and entertainment for the community and surrounding area. 

Founded in 1925 by the Daughters of the British Empire, the British Home, as it was long called, comprised one building housing a long-term care facility on a 10-acre lot donated by Chicago industrialist Samuel Insull. The initial building housed 36 residents.

Over the decades, Cantata has adapted to meet changing needs and now provides a wider range of care options, including independent living, assisted living, skilled rehab, long-term care, memory support, and respite care on a larger campus with multiple buildings. Its clients are also older. All of its services and providers are licensed.

“If you rolled back 25 years, the average length of stay for our clients was 5 to 10 years on campus,” says John Larson, CEO, who has worked at Cantata for 32 years. “Now, it is one and a half to two years. The average age of residents living on campus is now 88 years. More people are staying in their homes longer.”

One of the reasons people are staying in their homes longer is the expense of moving into a long-term care, independent living, or assisted living facility. Canata’s market is primarily a middle-income audience. Yet this demographic group, often referred to as the “forgotten middle,” has the challenge of being able to afford living in a long-term care or assisted living facility.

“Middle income seniors often have too much income and assets to afford Medicaid. Yet they do not have sufficient financial resources to afford a private assisted living facility,” says Larson, adding that Cantata does not accept Medicaid.

More than a decade ago, Larson and Kevin Heraty, Cantata’s development director, envisioned this situation as it would only become more challenging as more and more baby boomers began to retire and a workforce shortage would ensue.

“We knew we had enough caregivers, yet we could see that there were not going to be enough when the baby boomers hit retirement age. So we reevaluated our existing model,” said Heraty. 

In 2011, the Illinois Human Service Commission (HSC) received a directive from then Gov. Pat Quinn to identify strategies that “significantly expand community options” for individuals with special needs to live in community settings.

A year later, Cantata’s board of directors embraced a new strategic direction which included expanding services to include home- and community-based services. Along with that came the name change to Cantata to reflect the organization’s expanded service.

 In 2013, Cantata reached another milestone by serving more clients off campus than those living on campus. With the board of directors’ support, Cantata developed a new model of private duty care. “We have caregivers who see clients in neighborhoods,” said Heraty. “So that could be a cluster of clients living in an area. The caregivers might see an individual client anywhere from two to five times a day for 15 minutes or so, to help them get dressed in the morning and have breakfast, then come back at lunchtime and later in the day. That is far less time (and expense) than a typical private duty caregiver who would spend four hours a day with a client.”

This new model helps save clients’ money, while allowing them to live independently in their homes. Cantata is on the vanguard of offering this model of service. Larson and Heraty have been invited to talk about this model at national conferences and through consulting with local governments across the nation. 

Meanwhile, Cantata staff continue to provide excellent care in a warm, friendly environment to their residents on its sprawling campus, located just north of the Brookfield Zoo.

During the kickoff celebration for the centennial, Cantata held an indoor barbeque (on a rainy day) in a large community room that was full of smiling seniors. Carol, an independent living resident, said, “I have a fabulous corner apartment on the ground floor. I get to see everyone coming and going and I have a beautiful view from my windows. I have everything I need!”

To learn more about Cantata, visit https://cantata.org/.