When family members (or the resident’s significant others) are present at care conferences, you have a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate how effective you and your staff have been in not only reaching the resident with excellent programs, but also to reinforce the positive impact your programs are having on the life and well-being of the person.
When you are sharing results with other professionals in the organization, you should be prepared with specific details and data to support your presentation. For a family care conference, your starting point should be different. This is a time to think in terms of “What does this person need and want to know?”, rather than what do we think is important as the care providers.
So from this perspective, here are some points to consider:
- If the resident is cognitively able to grasp any aspects of your presentation, to any degree, speak to them first. Physically position yourself so that you can look at the resident and share your findings (in a manner and format that the resident is most likely able to grasp). This might include making references to how you have utilized the person’s past interests in selecting programs and areas of focus, sharing pictures of them and posters from programs, commenting on how well they have done at specific programs, and sharing what you have in mind for future programming ideas. Be sure to ask the resident if they have any program requests, or suggestions for improvement.
- Families often struggle with the decision to “put mom in the home,” so they tend to be looking for reassurance that they made the right choice. In point #1, you have demonstrated your respect for the resident, which is usually a good signal for the family members. Families often evaluate “more engagement” as a sign of good care, and for sure you need to share how many times the person has engaged. Take it a step further, and looking at the family members, tell them: how many program s/he attended over the past year; how many minutes of engagement s/he had; how diverse the person’s engagements were (i.e. the various domains); how well the person was doing (scores); and the number of times s/he attended the most frequented programs. Finally, be sure to ask for feedback and suggestions from the family members, and invite them to attend specific upcoming programs.
- For “reluctant” engagers (those residents who resist attending programs), there may be two other areas you will bring to the family’s attention: 1) the number of times the resident engaged in self-directed (or independent) leisure activity; and 2) the number of times you and your staff attempted to engage the person, but they were either absent, sick, sleeping or chose not to attend (with documentation to explain the circumstances and reasons where possible).
Again, be sure to ask for feedback and suggestions from the family members, and invite them to attend specific upcoming programs.
If you are using ActivityPro, you know that the Resident/Family Report will contain these details for sharing with the resident and family members. Be sure to print a copy of the report (in color if you can) to give to them as well.
Finally, since other disciplines will likely be in attendance at this care conference, also be prepared with the more detailed Resident Multi-Month report. This will provide you with the information that may be required, relative to discussing the the person’s engagement in more detail, and for developing the resident’s plan of care.
If you’re not using ActivityPro yet why not give us a call toll free at 1-888-898-0098 today so we can help you shine at your next care conference!
