19 replies to this topic

[Chet]

The staff where I work are hot and cold, if they think the activity is cool, they bring them, if not they say "you don't want to do that do you" One trick that works is to email the families the calendar. They tell the nursing staff to take there family member to programs. I also try to get the staff involved in planning the programs. for example they choose the menu for red hat luncheon, now I have 95% participation at the luncheons. What I need help with now is weekend activities, it's only me for activity staff. Does anyone have ideas for staff ran programs?

Thanks,
Kori

[calyrod]

Hello,

I guess im pretty lucky in this area. My staff are extremely wonderful. They love to help out, but I was told that before I came, it was not like that. They didnt help with anything. I would recommend getting to know your staff a little better. Seem a bit interested in who they are. It opens up a beautiful relationship and when someone likes you, they are more apt to helping you. We had a luau not to long ago and had a best dressed contest awarding the top three dressed giftcards. We had the whole staff dresses to impress and they had every single resident 114, dressed in grass skirts and bras, over their clothes of course. We even talked all the department heads and administrator into doing karaoke together. The residents loved watching the head honchos making fools of themselves :0)
Hope this helps
cassey

[Ella]

Yes! I too have trouble getting staff to assist with getting residents to activities and have tried different things including the "rewards" as you guys have suggested. They all seem to work for about a day or two and then fail. There always seem to be one or two bad apples in the bunch that appear to set it up to fail even if they are ones that are rewarded. Also I have had staff who will walk from one end of the building allllllllll the way over to the activity room to get a cookie during the morning coffee social and will not bring a resident with her! When I ask her about it she just walks away from me. I have even gotten so bold as to say"If you are going to walk all the way over here to eat the residents cookies, why don't you bring a resident over for the activity"? She stampers with her words to come up with an excuse as to why she is in the activity room even after I have followed her from the far unit! No matter how hard we try, we are not going to change some of these people! Even with the sweet cookies!

[themusiclady]

you could make a list of suggestions for the staff meeting eg 'bring a resident with you if you come to get a snack'
and religiously implement a reward system for the staff who follow through. You'll need to be vigilent noticing all the little things people do, compliment them, make sure they know you see what they do and you appreciate it.

You'll need the support of your leadership team, mentoring these things in reviews and training etc.

Having worked at many many facilities across greater Houston in the past 5 years there must be people who don't really understand what the activities program are for or how they should be run as a therepeutic environment!

I've led music groups in dining halls where the staff are loudly taking coffee breaks or setting tables, worked underneath loud-speaker systems constantly calling out messages to the unit, had every unnecessary interruption or disturbance you can imagine, vacuuming, maintenance, socialising staff, people on cell phones, staff constantly walking in front of the seniors who are watching me instead of going round behind the group etc.

This is bad practice especially for working with people with short-term memory problems or hearing impairment, but I see that inspections now note & mark down these things more and more so maybe there will be big changes in the future.

Until then- good luck!

[jrsarandreajr]

Chet, on 29 March 2009 - 06:20 PM, said:

The staff where I work are hot and cold, if they think the activity is cool, they bring them, if not they say "you don't want to do that do you" One trick that works is to email the families the calendar. They tell the nursing staff to take there family member to programs. I also try to get the staff involved in planning the programs. for example they choose the menu for red hat luncheon, now I have 95% participation at the luncheons. What I need help with now is weekend activities, it's only me for activity staff. Does anyone have ideas for staff ran programs?

Thanks,
Kori

Somethng I've done at my facility that seems to work well is each quarter (every three months), I dedicate a week to staff ran programs. I create a sign up sheet with available dates and times and I post it by the time clock (or accessible area). Staff members of all departments are allowed to sign up to run an activity program with the residents for the designated time frame. The appealing thing is, they can choose to do whatever they want (with approval of course). Some staff members who feel they do not have some sort of talent simply choose to call off bingo numbers or lead a horseracing activity. It seems to be working so far. It's worth a shot. I hope this helps.

Thanks,

Joe