November 2009 - Welcome to The Priory
This Month's Topics
Activity Update
Sharing Best Practice
Family Chat Corner Update
Training
Profiling Fiona Critchell – Assistant Manager
Dear %%Residents Forename%%
Welcome to the Priory newsletter keeping you fully up to date with news and events.
Activity Update
We were delighted when the children from the local primary school in Pembury came to visit, bringing in gifts of vegetables and fruit for our Harvest Festival. The children sang songs and brought in letters that they had written about themselves to share with the residents. Our chef made a special Halloween cake whilst Corinne, ably assisted by relatives and residents was in charge of making biscuits for our Halloween tea. Needless to say there was icing everywhere!
The visit was a great success and by way of thanks, Corinne and the residents wrote back to the children telling them what they use to do when they were younger and the different backgrounds that they had come from.
Residents watched the televised Thanksgiving Service and after observing the one minutes silence we had our own service. Heather Hughes our Chaplain encouraged residents to share stories of their memories of the last days of the war.
Our activities programme continues to provide a full calendar of events and social gatherings throughout December, for full details please check the notice board outside my office.
Sharing Best Practice
The Surrey Care Association Conference held in Leatherhead in October provided a forum for presentations from dementia and training specialists. Ernie Graham and I gave a presentation on Relationship Centred Technology and how technology solutions form an integral part of communication within the care sector. Two examples of Relationship Centred Technology are:-
1) On-line access to Care Plans and Daily Reports for residents and relatives.
Care staff enter reports onto the computer system giving details of each residents’ care and activities. Each day, the report focuses on a particular activity of daily living in order to ensure that the care provided is systematically evaluated against all the elements of the care plan. Relatives and friends can register with a user name and password and view the information on line whenever they want to.
2) “My Amego” monitoring system.
The My Amego system is centred upon a network of discreetly placed sensors which collect individual movement data of users as they move through their living environment. The resident is “connected” to the wireless system by way of a small pendant device, which can be easily and individually programmed by the carer.
The system allows the individual more freedom to do as they please without unnecessary interventions from staff, satisfies safeguarding and provides invaluable information to staff for dependency discussions and managing falls.
Family Chat Corner Update
In the last newsletter we had just installed a computer in the Family Chat Corner. I am pleased to report that it is being used on a daily basis. Corinne and Anita are able to research areas of particular interest for individual residents. A few of our residents worked in the Women’s Land Army and now they are able to access images of times that they can remember. They have been looking at the different uniforms of those years and pictures of women working on the land. This activity forms a valuable part of the reminiscence therapy for our residents. Where there are common areas of interest we hold group sessions, or for specific individuals we have one to one sessions. The computer has proved to be a valuable investment.
Training
All of our domestic team have now attained their NVQ Level 2 in Support Services. In addition all kitchen and domestic staff will be attending a one day course in dementia care run by Tutor Care. Although not all of these staff are directly involved with the residents, a greater understanding of dementia will help them interact with the residents on a daily basis and enable them to understand some of the issues associated with dementia.
As part of our ongoing commitment to training in November eight of our carers will be attending a dementia course run by West Kent College to attain EDI Level 2 Dementia Care Training. The course runs for a period of 12 weeks and tutors periodically come in to the home to assess and monitor the staff involved.
I have recently attended the 4th UK Dementia Congress which was held in Harrogate. This was a 3 day conference covering a number of topics including end of life issues for people with dementia. It proved to be a very interesting few days inciting some lively debates with an opportunity to network with managers and professionals within the care sector.
If you require further information relating to any of the above topics please contact me by following this link.
Lorraine Cousins
Manager
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Profiling Fiona Critchell – Assistant Manager
Fiona holds Level 2 and 3 NVQ qualifications, a BTEC in Care for Elderly People, RMA and is an A1 NVQ Assessor.
At College Fiona spent some of her work experience placement in a nursing home and decided that a career within the care sector was what she wanted to pursue.
In 1987 Fiona joined Norfolk Social Services as a carer in a nursing home where she remained for 10 years. In 1997 she transferred to a nursing home in Kent specialising in elderly frail and Parkinsons. Initially starting as a carer, within a year she was promoted to Team leader and subsequently promoted to Assistant Manager.
In December 2008 Fiona joined the Priory as Assistant Manager. Initially, her main aim was to motivate and bring the staff together to work more efficiently as a team. Within her role Fiona is responsible for organising training and providing training for the staff. Very much a people person Fiona actively encourages feedback from her staff, good or bad! Since starting at the Priory Fiona has implemented new structures, care rotas, task lists and key worker systems that ensure individual staff have are responsible for certain aspects of residents care.
Fiona is keen to recognise potential within the team and encourage staff to progress with the training that is available to them. Working with the team leaders to enhance their supervisory and management skills on one to one and group sessions is key to her role.
“I enjoy seeing residents get the best care possible, by ensuring that the staff are fully trained, I would never ask anyone to do something that I wasn’t prepared to do myself” said Fiona.
“We are here for the residents to make a difference for the rest of their lives, by promoting best practice and ensuring that standards are improved, I try to make this happen”.
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