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Hi Peter

I am glad you were thinking ahead to plan what you were going to do. However, as you mentioned, you have to see what is in place.

I do not know what the regulations state

I am retired now, but when I worked in Massachusetts, every resident had to get a monthly calendar

I gave some of the residents a weekly calendar as well and posted one and a common area for all to see

Also, you have to see what is already in place for counters, etc.

I’ll think it’s important to see what the residents want

No sense having activities if no one wants to participate in them

Some residents may not feel comfortable using computers or tablets

I assume you will have one to use so you can print things out for those who do not want to use technology

I do not know if he will have visited the residents to get a sense of what they want to do

Perhaps shortly after you begin, you can have some sort of a resident council meeting so you get a better sense of what people want to do

https://www.goldencarers.com/how-to-run-successful-resident-council-meetings/4215/

As I said, before, there must be some Sort of regulations As to what needs to be included in the activity program

Hi Peter, I use the calendar as a resource. I download 11x17 and type into the calendar boxes. I generally have 2 morning activities, 2 afternoon activities with a scheduled hour for room visits. A lot of the quizzes, word ladders etc. I print them up and generally enlarge them. We do Today in history a couple of times in a month and This week in history every Sunday. My current clientele would not be able to use technology, maybe in a few more years.

Hi Tamara

Thank you for your thoughts and ideas

Hi Susan and Tamara; thanks for your replies. You have given me some great ideas to explore. The meetings could be useful and I like the approach you mention, Tamara. I agree about the use of technology and would prefer printed copies anyway. The technology may have a place still, but I would be using it to display things on a large screen for the patients to see - activities such as the picture reveal on Golden Carers for example and bingo. But I agree, most of our patients are not going to be comfortable using a tablet or similar. I started my job earlier this week and so far, so good. There is an Activities Calendar already at the unit but I can try different things too. I am doing weekends and these are not covered in the calendar so I will be able to design some activities for the patients to do at weekends which is great. I did a simple snakes and ladders game yesterday...I used a large portable whiteboard and drew a snakes and ladders board. I simply had a few pairs of dice in plastic cups (shakers), wrote residents names on small pieces of paper as counters and stuck them to the board after moving the appropriate amount of spaces. It was great fun and seemed to go down really well. Thank you once again guys! Peter