Hear from our Service User Engagement Manager, Sophia Feurtado, about our ‘Life skills toolkit’ for Activities Coordinators and how it’s supporting people to take part in more meaningful and engaging activities.
When people hear the word ‘activity’, they often think of group activities such as arts and crafts, baking and bingo. Whilst structured group activities are important and encourage social interaction, we believe that meaningful activity should be built into everyday life.
This could be through choosing an outfit for the day, arranging the flowers on display around the home or setting the table for lunch.
Everyone deserves the opportunity to engage in activities that are meaningful to them.
At Exemplar Health Care, we take the time to understand people’s unique life experiences, hobbies, interests, roles and routines, and use this knowledge to empower and enable people to engage in a range of activities that are important and enjoyable for them.
To support this approach, we developed a ‘Life skills toolkit’ for our Activities Coordinators.
What is the ‘Life skills toolkit’?
The toolkit provides guidance and learning for Activities Coordinators to encourage effective service user engagement in their home.
There are three booklets in the toolkit that cover the standards required to achieve a bronze, silver and gold award.
Our Activities Coordinators work through each booklet, implementing the initiatives and practices in their home and completing the activities and checklists throughout.
When they’ve achieved everything that’s required in each standard, they’re awarded a bronze, silver and gold plaque and certificate, as part of a celebratory event in their home.
What does the ‘Life skills toolkit’ include?
The toolkit covers a range of practices that support meaningful activity and engagement including:
active support planning
accessible information
feedback and participation
service user roles and volunteering
community engagement
Service User Ambassador initiative.
What is ‘meaningful activity’?
In its simplest term, activity can be defined as the state of doing – it’s everything that we do from the moment we get up in the morning to when we go to sleep at night.
There are different types of activity including:
personal care and hygiene
domestic
work
leisure.
To make activities meaningful, they need to be tailored to people’s interests, needs and preferences, and have meaning and purpose to the person doing them.
Why is meaningful activity important?
Meaningful and engaging activities can help to sustain and improve both physical and mental health and wellbeing – which supports people to enjoy a better quality of life.
Engaging in meaningful activity can:
promote independence
increase a sense of self-worth and identity
encourage social interaction with others and reduce isolation or loneliness
bring personal enjoyment and satisfaction which builds self-esteem
teach us new skills, such as communication or problem solving skills
improve physical health and keep us active.
Meaningful activity is not an ‘added bonus’ of good care, it’s an essential requirement.
Who should be involved in activities?
Meaningful engagement and activity should be central to daily life.
People should be offered opportunities and encouraged to participate in range of ‘activities’ with a range of different people and personalities throughout the day.
It’s often the one-to-one spontaneous activities that make the biggest difference.
Our whole-home approach to activities means that everyone in our care homes, from Administrators to Home Managers, to Kitchen Assistants and Health Care Assistants, are responsible for this.
Going for gold at Dearnevale
The Activities Team at our Dearnevale care home in Grimethorpe is one of our homes that’s achieved the gold award.
They shared: “We’ve got through the toolkit really well as a team.
“We hold regular service user meetings where we listen to our service users about what activities they want to do, both as a group and individually.
“Since starting these meetings, we’ve found that more people get involved in activities as they’ve had that choice and voice to decide what they want to do and when.
“We’re now able to get out in the community more which is great. We’ve done lots of local walks and some of our service users have been to the gym.
“We’ve recently started helping our local council with ‘The Dell Project’ which allows our service users to voice their opinions within their local community.
“The toolkit provides a process for supporting people to take part in volunteering in the home. One of our residents delivers post twice a week, and another helps us out in the garden, watering and checking the plants. We’ve even had volunteers to help with hoovering and cleaning the windows!
“Some of the people we support get involved in recruitment. It’s really valuable to have their opinions and input on potential new colleagues and ensures that they’re involved in their care.
“The toolkit gives us a place to showcase evidence of our activities and engagement with service users. Since using it, we’ve got a lot more evidence of service user engagement to show CQC and other healthcare professionals.”
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