Pets

Wondering what pets people have in thier various facilities and who takes care of them.  What benefits do you see at your facility from the pets you have?
Would you recommend another facility to get the same pets you have? 

Paperless charting

I am wondering if there are any facilities that are 100% paperless... Does anyone chart their activity participation directly into the computer at the activity itself?  This is ideal and maybe it will be more universal in about 10 years, but right now, I think some of us are part way there, but most of us aren't close.  In my facility, most of the chart itself is paperless.  I do the assessments and careplans directly into the computer on a laptop.  We never print the careplans, or anything else from the chart.  The improvement I would love to make is for my activity staff to be able to chart participation at the activity.  It would save lots of time, and be more accurate and up to date.  As it is, it often takes a week for the participation sheets to get charted into the computer. 
Anyone have any great ideas?

Facility activity when most can't attend...

We recently had a GI outbreak at our facility and had 3/4 of the facility closed down for illness.  When the residents could not attend normal activities for a week, everyone was starting to get antsy.  To help with overall morale, we created an all day bingo game.  Each resident got a paper bingo card and a pencil or pen.   Bingo numbers we announced overhead every 15 minutes.  It really helped make the day special for residents and staff also got involved helping them know what numbers had been called etc.  It was so well received, we did it again the next day.  And each day it did take from 9:30 am to 3:30 pm to get a winner.  I am thinking of doing this again for NH week, and including staff.

Great Education Website

If you are looking for information on various current events/ history topics to use for programming, and simple ways to explain things to your residents, try the Scholastic website. Its for teachers, but I have found it very helpful for programs such as Black History Month and the Iditarod.  I am sure they have many other great topics as well.   They break things down simply and cover other activities that you can do to support the topic and books to read etc. 

Science Lesson

I am excited to start monthly science lessons for our residents.  I just got Science for Seniors by Gloria Hoffner.  Though it reminds me a lot of a book called Science Experiments for Kids that I have at home, I like the way she explains how to incorporate the experiments into a group.  It should be fun.  Anyone else doing anything like this? 

I think the hardest part of being an activity director, is that we can't make eveyone happy.  There are always people who don't like the events that you put all your heart and soul into and you think are great.  Sometimes that hurts your pride.  Its learning not to take things personally, that is a huge life lesson of this job.  How does everyone else do it?

Great ideas

If you haven't checked it out yet, head on to Pinterest.  There are so many great ideas on this website, and it lets you save them onto your own pinboards that you can catagorize anyway you want.  I have found lots of great craft project ideas on it.  There are so many things to sort through though, you can get lost in it! 

World of the internet

Most of our residents are not familiar with computers and with the internet.  They are amazed at what can be found on-line.  One of my favorite groups to run is  "google time."  We set the LCD projector up and have the residents tell us things we would like to google.  Google earth is great, and amazing to them to see their own house or street views of their old towns etc.  This is a free, easy to run activity!  Try it this month.

craft ideas

 I think I am pretty crafty.  but I do run out of appropriate ideas for my residents at times.  Something that many of us struggle with is a project that is simple enough not to frustrate our residents and one they can do without much assistance, and a project that is not too childish.  One website that I like is Kaboose.com.  It is a website for children's crafts, but I have found many of them that I can use in my facility with small adaptations.
I also love Pinterest.  If you don't check it out, you should. there are literally thousands of ideas.  Crafts, organization, design, and many more.  There are so many projects that you can use and adapt.  Its a great starting point.  Don't sit down to the site though if you don't have lots of time!  It can be consuming!

Volunteers

Having great volunteers can be invaluable to your organization.  But where do you find the really good, dependable volunteers?  I have found that most of the time, those volunteers find me.  When I spend time and attempt to recruit volunteers, I usually don't get the best ones.  My facility has been around a long time and has a good reputation.  The people that come to me because they really want to volunteer are often the ones that stay the longest.   It is a special person who chooses a nursing home to volunteer with.  Working with the elderly is not everyone's first choice.  It certainly isn't a glamorous place, and it is not where many young people will choose to work in the future, so why volunteer here?  Volunteers can be a lot of work, or an invaluable asset.  You have to be able to set limits and say no.  Remember you are the boss and if a group is too big, an an inconvenient time or a student is too hard to train, you can send them of their way.  I often find myself wanting to help the volunteer, at the extend of not getting my own work done.  I am trying to limit the volunteer groups we take and learn to set my own limits on what I expect.