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Christina 27th Apr 2014 Activity Co-ordinator

Hi, as an activity coordinator my home requires me to display a weekly program/schedule of activities and events. Its supposed to look like there is something on morning and afternoon. However I am having trouble working out how this fits in with working in a 'person centred way'. Surely the person centred approach means that there are likely to be several different activities going on, some one to one, some small group, some larger. To some extent those activities may be quite spontaneous and 'in the moment'.. difficult to predict on a Sunday evening when preparing a schedule. I think the concept of a timetable/schedule is for promoting the home to visitors.. perhaps. The carers always ask me 'what's on today?' and I feel I have to state an activity, time and place. Any advice or comments greatly appreciated.

Jeanette 29th Apr 2014 Activities Officer

I produce a calendar for the month too. I usually have one main activity in the morning and one in the afternoon but I always let staff know this is flexible. If I have scheduled card games and the residents would sooner play boardgames games or sit outside in the sunshine- thats what we do. I also have afternoons where I put on my calendar -one on one time with residents. I am also fortunate in that I have a lot of volunteers that come in and run the organised activity - leaving me free to spend one on one time with other residents not attending the scheduled activity.. I also try to leave a few activities out....jigsaws, therapy dolls sock pairing (see blog on http://lillypillyprint.com ).hope this is helpful..

Penny 13th May 2014 Lifestyle & Volunteer Coordinator

Hi Christina, depending on your staffing level (paid and volunteer) you could have names for groups and you either decide on the day what the activity will be or have a theme but give residents a choice between two activities. I run a Fun @ 4 program mainly for sundowners but all the higher care needs residents are invited. We have a theme most days like ball games, art, reminiscing but I also program happy hour once a month. Reminiscing might include quiz, trivia, story telling (reading) as well as just chatting about certain items/times. My team are all able to steer the session dependent on who attends. We also run sessions like Lets get Physical and again this includes a variety of gentle exercise and ball games dependent on ability level of those attending. Our lower care area has more traditional style programmed sessions. It can be very hard to remain person centred while trying to offer group activities but resident enjoyment is paramount. If you have residents telling others they should attend this or that, then you're on a winner :)

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