Forum Discussion

Hi Sunya, one way to run activities on weekends without a Lifestyle staff is to ask a sympathetic nurse to do it without taking too much of her time. For instance, setting up a Mandala drawing activity on a table for a group of residents. A poster activity could also work; a theme poster on children for instance where she would give residents lots of magazines and safety scissors to search and cut out pictures of babies and children for a poster. She can come back later and tidy up.

Alternatively seek a volunteer willing to come for a couple of hours to lead a class of seated exercises like Movement to Music, or take a ​group for a walk, or facilitate a High Tea. Of course, you can also rely on​ a good movie for a couple of enjoyable hours. Best of luck!

Please can anyone help regarding activities for weekends. There are no activity coordinators that work at the weekends and the nurses struggle to do activities with the residents. I have spoken to the nurses, asking and involving them in what activities would be acceptable for them to participate with the residents within their time scales to do activities With them and I have left out appropriate activities as guided by the staff. Please can anyone help further. I want to do the best for our residents

Another idea is to have high functioning residents run a few activities
Maybe two tesidente could run the activity
I hung large envelopes on the walls with independent activities that residents could do
There is a always the idea of playing some movies for the residents to watch or playing music for the residents to listen to
There are some great videos of there that are pretty good at engaging the residents
For all of these things you do need someone on the staff to initiate the activities and gather residents to come to them
You can always have a deck of cards are some dice for the residence to use

Hello, I work weekends myself. I was offered Mon-Fri but I have commitments on Fridays. So I come in Saturday and the odd Sunday. Tomorrow, I am not going to do movement to music but have church music and do bowling instead. I've got an actiptoes recourse folder, so any staff than can in the absence of activity coordinators can do things like a gentle quiz or read them a nice relaxing biography or story. Any nurses that can give their time (we don't have nurses, we are a care home) can easily and quickly do this.

I guess that’s good for everyone that you work on the weekends and good ideas for activities for residents on the weekends

Obviously this idea depends on your demographics, but we are in the process of getting small hymn booklets printed out &made up, (all in-house). Some of our residents read, but it's also a prompt for staff/visitors.

Alternatively, make a mix CD of culturally appropriate songs & stories for the carers to put on, if you have the skills and equipment???

Hi Sunya and Jane,
Would you have access to WI-Fi and a Smart TV or Chromecast?
I have a common room that is staffed by a HCA and what we do to help them is to have a Youtube playlist for each day of the week with different kinds of media for different times of the day.
It is turned on at 9.00 by the nurse in charge and runs for 9 hours.
First hour is easy listening to help with the meet and greet, then 30 min of instrumental music for tea break, then an exercises video for 20-30min followed by sing along favourites until 1pm mixed with some animal and baby videos. After one, back to easy listening or andre rieu for another hour to give everybody some time to rest. Then a short film (Laurel and Hardy or a documentary), followed by 30 min of instrumental music for tea break. After that, we have different thigs for difrent days like poetry videos, sayings, nursery rymes, a nice relaxin video of gided mediatation, etc. They always end with "in Dublin's Fair City" and another sing along starst (I try to find songs with lyrics on the screen so HCA can join in, but not Karaoke as the residents do need the lead of the siniging).
It does not always work, as sometimes the HCA do not want to do the work and I do not have choice of who ys allocated there but I think it helps if the HCA is interested.

I hope this helps you.

Thanks Alix for your suggestions
This could work for you Sunya

Thanks for your ideas Elisa

Yes, thank you Elisa. This sounds like a very good resource you have. Our residential care home is staffed 7 days a week, so the residents always have something to do until 4.30 every day. On Sundays, we also have Bible and Hindi stories to read to them. During the week, I have tried Aesop's fables and they love it.