Hnyb1998

I am a Board Certified Music Therapist with a four year college degree that prepared me very well for work as an Activity Director. I value the idea of being certified... to keep standards high... but I dont find the need to take a short class to become certified in activities. I take continuing education courses to keep my music therapy certification current as well as attend local workshops/conferences on activity and recreation therapy.

We have a holiday family party early in december on a weeknight around 6pm. All the department heads are required to attend! Dietary and activities work together to decide on an assortment of appetizers. We ask families to bring a dessert to share. Department heads help people get food and mingle with families. We have musical entertainment and Santa stops by to visit. Everyone has a blast and a lot of families attend. It is free for the families!

HI. My name is Melissa and I am an Activity Director of a 140bed longterm care home in Southeast Denver, Colorado. I am a board certified music therapist. Currently we have a census of around 90. 40% of our population is young residents (<60) with mental illness and psch. diagnosis . I am working to get these residents set up with lots of volunteer job opporotunities. We also have around 10% Hospice, 5% rehab and 35% longterm. As far as my typical activity calendar goes, I offer about 4-5 activities per day. We go on 1 outing per week, and usually have about 1 entertainer per week. I have 1 full time assistant, and 1 part time assistant that works weekends. I would love to have 1 more part time assistant to help cover some evenings. I need more ways to get families involved!! We offer monthly summer BBQs and Family Council meetings 1x/month, but still VERY little family involvement. How can I get more families to come visit their loved ones and participate in activities together? ie... the last family council meeting we only had 2 family members show up... OUT OF 90 some residents!

I use Calendars USA (http://www.calendarsusa.com/). I enter all my calendar info online. Then I get to pick the theme of my calendar. They create a gigantic calendar printed in color and mail it to me each month! The calendars look great, and the residents love to find out what the theme will be each month. It costs about $60 for a calendar 34"x44". You can order calendars as big as: 42"x60" or as small as: 8 1/2" x 11." THIS WORKS GREAT! i know that it costs extra but its worth it! I take my in room calendars (11x17) to a local printing shop and they design it. It costs me about $125 for 100 calendars and newsletters. ALSO WORTH IT! i don't have to mess with the copy machine this way, and it saves me time.

I work in a nursing home facility with a lot of younger folks that are pretty high functioning. I have put some of them on a therapuetic work program, ie: running country store, watering flowers, crushing cans, assisting with newsletters, visiting with other residents, sweeping. I have several residents that need EVEN more opportunities for working and I am running out of ideas and job placements. MY PROBLEM: The volunteer jobs must be able to be completed without much assistance from me or other staff members. PLEASE HELP!!!

I have a lot of younger residents too! WE do a monthly group called "Hangtime," which consists of a lunch (usually fast food, pizza, or KFC) and music listening (younger tunes... 1960-90's). The group votes on what they want to eat for next month. We have also had staff bring in pot luck dishes for theme meals ie:Chinese, Mexican. I also do a movie group once a month. The young folks vote on the movie they want to watch and I get it from netflix. The younger folks like adventure/action/comedy that sometimes might be inappropriate for the older residents. The residents get together and enjoy fresh popcorn like at the real theatre.