How can providers use people’s experiences and preferences to deliver successful activities?
Experiences and preferences
Drawing upon the experiences and preferences of people living in a care setting is essential for providers wishing to deliver successful activities. Treating residents as ‘people’ not ‘patients’ by learning about their life stories and engaging with their interests should help providers to organise activities that enrich residents’ lives and support physical and mental wellbeing.
Individualised care planning and robust communication between staff should help providers to create activities that are an extension of the personalities and identities of the people in their care, fostering unity between residents and delivering
person-centred outcomes.
Accessibility and risk management
There are, of course, more practical considerations providers must take into account in order to deliver successful activities. Individual experiences and preferences in relation to accessibility and risk are two such examples.
The Access Group details the importance of planning activities to ensure that people with cognitive impairments and limited mobility can participate. In addition, The Access Group reports that residents are more likely to respond positively to freedom of choice – although it is unlikely that you will be able to please everyone.
With regulatory inspections in mind, quality providers will manage and routinely review risk assessments to facilitate the safe delivery of successful activities. Skills for Care encourages providers to ensure there is the right mix of skills, competencies, qualifications, experience and knowledge amongst their staff cohort to meet people’s individual needs when delivering successful activities.
Training for success
While conversations around activities tend to focus on the outcomes for people receiving them, the staff delivering activities should also be supported to operate effectively in their roles. Staff with the training, knowledge and experience to assess the needs and abilities of residents before planning successful activities should be better placed to deliver them based on the preferences of the people they are caring for.
In addition, staff may receive training to tap into the experiences of family members or other significant people in the lives of the people being cared for to help plan and provide successful activities. Friends and relatives can provide invaluable insight for providers that have the capacity to listen and take action. The local community may also wish to support activity provision. This provides the opportunity for residents to remain in touch with life outside of the care setting and calls upon staff to engage with another stakeholder with its own set of experiences that can be utilised to contribute to delivering successful activities.
Listen and learn
Engaging with people participating in activities in order to gather their feedback should allow providers to continuously adapt and improve their offerings. Systems in place to provide feedback should be as accessible as possible to people taking part in activities and ideally, in turn, make it easier for providers to plan and resource successful activities on a daily basis. Staff should also be encouraged to make observations, compare notes about what went well and suggest ideas to make activities even more successful next time.
Providers face an uphill battle in trying to incorporate the experiences and preferences of multiple stakeholders into the deliverance of successful activities. Now, it’s over to the experts for their input.
There is an art to creating meaningful activities. I believe that this hinges on embracing the unique experiences and preferences of individuals. NAPA champions core strategies providers can employ to harness people’s experiences and preferences, turning ordinary routines into extraordinary moments of fulfilment. Delivering meaningful activities begins with understanding individuals. A comprehensive assessment, which explores backgrounds, interests and experiences, lays the foundation for meaningful activities. This is the blueprint for ensuring that every activity is a tailored fit. Open channels of communication and keep them flowing. Regular engagement with individuals and their families ensures that their voices are acted upon. Engaging in ongoing conversations helps us adapt activities to align with evolving preferences and experiences. Preferences are as dynamic as life itself. They shift and evolve over time, and we must adapt. Embracing flexibility ensures that activities remain relevant and meaningful. Collaboration encourages team members to share their knowledge and experiences and enriches ideas. We create an environment where the exchange of ideas is encouraged, resulting in a broader spectrum of activities that resonate with diverse tastes and backgrounds. We also invest in training our team in meaningful activity provision. By equipping activity and care teams with the skills and mindset needed, we empower them to provide more engaging activities. To ensure our services continuously evolve, we establish feedback mechanisms and regularly assess the impact of our activities. Data-driven decisions enable us to refine our offerings and ensure they meet the changing needs and preferences of individuals. By embracing each person’s unique experiences and preferences, we empower them to be active participants. This leads to more enjoyable and fulfilling activities and promotes overall wellbeing and improved quality of life. I promote these principles because I believe that meaningful activities are at the core of delivering compassionate care and support. I encourage all providers to embark on this journey – together, we can make a difference. Hilary Woodhead, Executive Director, National Activity Providers Association (NAPA)
We conduct ‘activities’ and ‘meaningful occupation’ with the best intentions but what this means can be limited; constrained by task-oriented concepts of what public commissioning of elderly residential care is really about, by limited public budgets and by operating in an impersonal and ageist environment. Predominantly, these things are the failure of political oversight. The dichotomy is that many providers are determined to build people’s quality of life with relationship-based care, whilst many local authorities and the NHS are more concerned about coping with growing need on shrinking budgets, predominantly focused on physical function, not wellbeing. Residential care caters to complex health matters but more importantly, builds a life worth living. That takes great skill, but central Government does little to develop this than pay lip service. Modern care homes don’t just look at activities as an optional extra, as public commissioners often have, but make quality of life, variety and spontaneity a central theme of what life is all about. That’s not to say some care homes don’t still plan activities with limited ambition. Not that long ago, commissioners wouldn’t fund these and even now, it’s not seen by some as important. Individualised holistic planning is key, including meaningful occupation for supporting people’s quality of life. Person-centredness and relating in care settings is vital. Honouring people’s rights to determine their own care and fostering partnership working between residents, families, teams and providers are also important. Activities, meaningful occupation and making life worth living reduces loneliness, helplessness and boredom and improves wellbeing. Team and organisation culture to support this is critical. It needs to embrace honest reflection, learning and innovation. Building relationships, emotional intelligence and keeping the focus upon ‘life worth living’ is achievable, rewarding and sound, business wise. Programmes such as the Eden Alternative, the Butterfly programme and the Chrysalis programme can help to fulfil these aspirations. Geoffrey Cox, Chief Executive Officer, The Eden Alternative UK