New Activity Directors

[tmadden 0]

I recently excepted a position as a Activity Director in a 70 bed home I am by myself and without any one to spend any time training me. I'm lost as to where to begin . How to organize my time . what kind of activiys to plan when a good time is to squeeze in to your day to do paperwork help me please figure out a working scedule so that I can be the successful Activity Director that I want to be.

 

Desparetly in need

 

tiffany

[yunakitty 2]

Well, I may not be the best to give advice, as I'm in a continuing care facility and I only have 10 people (6 AL, 4 Clinical) to do activities for. But, since no one else has said anything yet, I guess something is better than nothing.

 

Do you have any assistants? That will make a big difference.

 

To start, you need to look over your resident's interest assessments. Whoever you replaced, if you're lucky, kept files and you'll already have copies of these. If not, look in their charts under activities; if you still can't find them, then you'll have to get the info yourself either from other areas of the chart (social services, admissions) or interview the residents yourself. The kind of activities to have varies wildly depending on your population. You have to do what they want to do. Your standard senior population is going to want bingo, arts and crafts, baking, mild exercise, musical activities, movies, gardening, and games. But, you may find that your particular population likes dancing or something else.

 

You have to provide at least 1 morning and 1 afternoon activity, with some evening and weekend. If you are truly the only one, obviously you can't be there 7 days a week. So, the two days you are not there, you can plan activities that the nurses can easily implement, or self-directed activities. For example, leaving a movie with the nurse on Friday with a post-it note "Play at 1:30 pm Saturday, movie matinee" Ask the nurses to try to round up people who want to watch, or to just remind people at lunch that a movie will be playing at 1:30pm. Other things to do are "sunshine visits" ie the nurses offer to take them to sit outside for a while. Good luck getting nurses to cooperate with you (they feel overwhelmed already and may balk at being asked to do extra) but under F248, activities are the responsibility of the entire facility. You just have to plan, set up, and supply. You could also set up painting materials on Friday afternoon, and put "Creative Painting" on the calendar for Saturday morning. Obviously, there are a lot of residents who need direct assistance with things like that, so those kind of activities mostly work with AL type residents. Which is why it's best to have at least 2 people on the activities staff so that someone is there every day.

 

I'm not sure how many floors you have to do activities on, but since I'm sure that you can't do activities for 70 people at once, let's use a three floor model.

 

You could have morning exercise at 9am on 1st floor, 9:45am on 2nd floor, and 10:30am on 3rd floor. Do exercise for 30 min each place, and you have 15 min in between each one to set up and get people together. You may have to adjust that time to more if you don't have good nurse support. You will really really have to plead for nurses to ask residents themselves if they want to go to exercise, and then take them to the room at the time the activity is. Because there is no way you can ask and transport that many people.

 

Then, in the afternoon, you could have bingo at 1pm on 1st floor, 2pm on 2nd, and 3pm on 3rd. By doing this, you'll have your "bare bones" requirements. However, if you do have other staff, you can flesh out the calendar with other activities. Say you have 2 assistants, then each one of you could stay on a floor and have the schedule:

 

9am Exercise

9:45 am Arts and Crafts

10:30 am Sing A Long

 

If you want each staff member to stick to one activity, then you could have Mrs. A teach Exercise, Mrs. B teach Arts and Crafts, and yourself lead the sing-a-long, and stagger the times like:

 

1st floor

9am Exercise

9:45 am Arts and Crafts

10:30 am Sing A Long

 

2nd Floor

9am Sing A Long

9:45 am Exercise

10:30 am Arts and Crafts

 

3rd Floor

9am Arts and Crafts

9:45 am Sing A Long

10:30 am Exercise

 

You'll have to work it out yourself how early you need to start before each activity setting up and getting people. If you are always starting late and rushing, you'll have to have more time.

 

You'll have to adjust depending on when meetings are. By this model, you have from whenever you come in to 8:45 am to work on paperwork, then between 11:00-ish and 1pm you can have lunch and work on paperwork, and after 4pm you're free to go home or finish up paperwork.

 

The best (and easiest) way to document who came to what is to make up a chart, sort of like an attendance roster like they have in schools, that has each residents name, and you can write in the name of the activity and the date, and mark their attendance. A for Actively Participating, P for Passively, D for disruptive, X for refused, B for asleep, and U for unavailable. You can keep that in a binder, and use it to transcribe into their chart for the weekly progress note. For example, you might look at the attendance for that week and see that Mr. A has been coming to every bingo, but is always disruptive. He always refuses exercise, and comes to some of the sing-alongs and art activities. You could write

Weekly Progress Note

Resident attends bingo regularly but is disruptive. Will continue to redirect him and talk to nurses about possible solutions. Resident continues to refuse exercise, will continue to encourage. Resident attends sing-a-longs and arts and crafts occasionally. Resident seems content with current activity level. Will continue to monitor.

 

That's just an example. In that imaginary scenario - the cause of his disruptive behavior in bingo could be a hearing problem, so you can meet with nurses to make sure they put in his hearing aid every day, especially before activities. Many residents take them out at meals. You might want to move him right to the front, or consider getting "Bingo calling cards" that have the number in HUGE font, that you can hold up as you say it. By the way, that's based on a real situation I had. A resident would constantly talk during bingo, asking what the number was and often saying it back incorrectly, which not only held up the game but confused other residents, as they would hear me say N33 and then hear him say "N43??" and they'd get mad at him.

 

You can also use those attendance logs as a place to jot stuff down - "Residents express interest in starting a bridge club" "Residents don't like current exercise program - need to change up routine." and act on those things later. Believe me, it is so important to write stuff down when you think of it because you often won't remember it later otherwise.

 

Well, I hope that's a start - let us know a little bit more about your situation and we might be able to give more specific advice. Good luck!