Remember
When?
By
Heide M. Cornell, ADC
Do
you remember when "Activities" was fun? Come
now, I'm sure you do. Do you remember when it was o.k.;
in fact it was even exciting to say "I'm an Activities
Director!" Do you remember the time of simplicity,
when you were not embarrassed to say "I provide
fun and entertainment to the seniors in my community"
? I do, and let's face it; I'm not that old so it wasn't
that long ago.
When
I started in this field (at the wee age of 14), I was
a volunteer in an ALC unit of my local hospital. When
I inquired what that meant, I was told these were people
waiting for nursing homes. I remember thinking to myself,
"those poor people are probably sad, and just need
somebody to make them smile". Turns out I was right.
(Ah, the wisdom of youth!) The residents of the unit
were not that interested in the actual events held,
even though they attended them, they were only looking
for "something to do" or "something to
make them forget for a while". So we did just that.
We had lots of fun just "hanging out" together,
me and my 25 grandparents.
Of
course there was paperwork. I had to fill out slips
every program indicating who attended. I think it took
me a whole ten minutes to write down names of people
on a piece of paper and file it in a book. I had to
"meet the new folks" every week. My supervisor
made a program out of it called "Getting to Know
You". I brought our new residents a goodie bag
filled with puzzles, magazines, snacks, an activities
calendar, and something else although I forget what
that was. (Come-on it's been 16 years now) When I went
in to their room, or to the lounge, I introduced myself
and gave them the bag. Then I asked them some questions
about themselves like, "what do you like to do?"
and after about 15 minutes, I was on to the next person.
I had to put all of their answers on another piece of
paper that my supervisor filed in a pink book behind
the nurse's station. I now know that the "pink
book" was the resident's chart, and the "piece
of paper" was an initial assessment.
Then
the day came when my supervisor told me that I should
really think about becoming an "Activities Person"
because I seemed to enjoy it so much. When I was 14,
I was going to become a teacher. I didn't even dream
that "Activities" was a real job. It was a
way to have fun. Still, I logged it into the back of
my head and continued on "hanging out" with
my "senior folk" as I called them. At 16,
my parents told me I had to get a paying job, so I applied
to work at the hospital in the dietary department.
Two
years without my "friends" in the ALC made
me sad. I went to college and started my teaching track,
and somehow never seemed happy with that choice. I saw
a job posting on the hospital board for an activities
person in the ALC unit. (Seems the hospital union didn't
like the idea of volunteers doing real person jobs)
It was part-time and fit in with my college life very
well, so I bid on it and got the job. In two years,
some of the regulations have changed, but the job was
still fun. Instead of just "hanging out" with
the seniors, I now had to plan at least a month in advance
what I was going to do every day. That was o.k. with
me because I just gathered a whole group of them up
and asked "What do you want to do this month?"
I even put it on the calendar and called it "Cruise
Director's Club". The residents thought it was
funny, and we would make paper hats to wear to the meeting,
sometimes we would have goldfish crackers. I never had
a problem filling my calendar with things to do; the
residents had lots of ideas. There were a few months
when I had small attendance at the meeting because the
dentist or doctor was there, or there were empty rooms
because the residents had moved to nursing homes. I
didn't stress over it because I had those "Getting
to Know You" papers to look at for ideas. When
people would ask me what my job was all about, I'd say
"having fun with the old people at the hospital."
I meant it too. My job was about having fun. After a
year back in the field of fun, I changed my college
major and decided that I really wanted to grow up to
be an Activities Director. Wow! What Fun!
Something
happened in those 16 years, activities professionals
discovered a new emotion besides happiness called stress.
As I entered into the world of activities directing,
I began networking with people who forgot about fun.
In fact I began meeting people who would even say, "I'm
an activity professional" and give a nervous, almost
embarrassed laugh afterwards. Soon after people started
saying "I provide diversional programming for people
in alternate levels of care." Soon after that the
going phrase was "I provide recreational therapy
and life enrichment services." Why did that happen?
Did I miss something? Oh, I know the whole push to be
"more than just the Bingo girl" and truly
I support it, but you don't have to hide behind a title
to do that. I have never felt embarrassed saying, "I'm
an Activities Director". Sometimes people say to
me "wow, your job must be fun." I've never
been insulted by that. In fact I always say, "yep,
bet you're jealous!"
Maybe
it is just my personality, but I just can't find it
in me to get all caught up in the fight to be the "best"
program director. As long as my residents think I am,
what do I care what they do at the ABC nursing home
down the street. I think technology is great, and knowledge
is power. I use those things every day to develop new
programs, but it all boils down to "is this fun?"
Ladies and gentlemen, you can have the most sophisticated
"Specialized Sensory Program for the Cognitively
Impaired" but is it fun? Do you enjoy implementing
your "mandatory 15 minutes or more room visits
with the socially isolated?" Do you even know what
that means? Do your residents enjoy having you force
your "you must attend 2-3 social groups per week"
rule on them? Have you ever stopped to think that it
is ok to want to be left alone?
An
activity is supposed to be fun. It is something for
the residents to help them "forget" for a
while. All of these fancy sophisticated products and
programs have made us forget that. All of the importance
placed on following the rules and having state survey
compliance have distorted a once wonderful and important
field. Activities are for the residents. Nobody else.
They are not to make your boss happy, or to serve as
a way for families to avoid guilt for not visiting.
They are not even about what your government wants.
They are about the residents.
People
post on the bulletin boards every day about needing
new ideas, keeping things fresh, stressing over how
much paperwork there is, not having time to do the room
visits or the extra weekly sensory programs, needing
ideas to get responses from those sensory programs.
It makes my head spin. Those are all indicators you
have forgotten about the resident's. You have forgotten
about what they want and need. You have forgotten that
it is all about fun. Let your physical therapist worry
about declining ADL's. Let your speech therapist concentrate
on meaningful responses to stimuli. You should be concentrating
on meeting recreational needs. That is all, there is
no more.
Keep on providing your room visits, but only visit people
who want you to. If you write that in your notes, you
won't get a dreaded deficiency. Keep providing sensory
programming, but instead of being "fancy"
be real. Actually look at your residents assessments
for your programming ideas. That's why you filled them
out in the first place. Modify those interests to meet
the ability levels of your folks. Don't ask a perfect
stranger what your residents want to do for "Cinco
de Mayo", ask your residents. Heck, you may find
out that they don't even know what it is, and would
have been just as happy not celebrating it
at all!
When
you start to feel the "stress" of the activities
profession, take a step back and look at your resident's
faces. Are they smiling? Happy resident's make all the
difference when it comes to surveys and administration.
Trust me. It's true. Remember it is not about what you
want the outcome to be, but whether or not the residents
are enjoying themselves. The next time somebody asks
you what you do for a living, tell them "I make
a lot of lonely people happy". If a co-worker says
"your job must be fun" don't get offended.
Tell them the truth. Tell them "Can you believe
I get paid for this?"
I
am Heide Cornell, nationally certified, and I have fun
at work. Do you?
NN
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