I have been working at Park View Care Home, for over six years. I began my role at Park View, as a Care Assistant, and then progressed to a Senior role. Two years ago, I was given the chance to be Head of Wellbeing to enhance the lives of residents within the home.
I am passionate about ensuring a high quality service and want residents to feel completely at home here. I work with the residents, their families and the wider team to ensure they are supported to live full lives through a tailored wellbeing programme.
Physical and mental wellbeing go side by side, improving fitness, helping with depression, anxiety and loneliness, improving the quality of sleep and even reduce falls.
With this in mind, I have introduced aromatherapy and yoga sessions and have also developed a working relationship with a local gym who visit and provide reablement training to improve mobility and sitting balance.
It is so important that we engage with every single resident within Park View and look at each individual life history. We can only help residents continue to live meaningful lives if we can understand them fully, especially our dementia community within Park View.
Residents are encouraged to participate in the wellbeing programme so that it can be as person centred as possible. I hold a monthly ‘Residents’ meeting’ which allows everyone to get involved in the planning for future activities programme. Feedback from this is important and we soon get a clear idea of what works and what doesn’t – there is no holding back!
I like to maintain strong links with outside communities, and our home is always open to visitors who come in weekly to entertain, share memories and promote engagement.
Of course, daily group sessions are important; however, we also cover a range of activities on a one-to-one basis. Wellbeing is not just about activities, it’s about everyday meaningful interaction or engagement.
For example, we have a former piano teacher who I encouraged to run monthly, ‘Forever Young’, choir sessions at the home. We also have a former farmer who loves our animal visits in the home.
And if we can’t make the activity a reality, we certainly can do it virtually through our virtual reality headset. For example, one resident who loves elephants recently went on a safari by simply watching a virtual reality episode. She was thrilled!
I take the attitude that anything is possible. We want our residents to live life to the full and not just exist at their time within Park View – and we are proud to be able to say we have achieved this.
