News
Newsletter February 2014
I am sure you are as keen as I am to see the back of this winter with its devastating weather and looking forward to the longer, brighter days of spring with Easter on the horizon.
With that in mind we are planning an Easter party with a difference for our residents and their families on Wednesday 9th April. At the Hawkinge’s Got Talent event, we’ll be showcasing the wide ranging talents of residents and staff, so look out Simon Cowell! We are delighted to be working with Chris Gage and the Ladder to the Moon project to help bring this event to life. Chris and his team have been coming to us once a month with their excellent innovative and creative dementia care programme (see image below of one of our sessions). We have learned so much from this project, it really is helping keep us at the forefront of dementia care.
Sharing innovation
We are currently taking part in a research project, led by Charlotte Mallen at Medway School of Pharmacy, focussing on managing challenging behaviour in care homes. We are delighted to be able to discuss our innovative approach and help share good practice within the sector.
Coming soon – the Graham Care Awards
We are planning to launch our own awards scheme to recognise the achievements of staff working in all our departments. We’ll be gathering testimonials from residents, their relatives and friends as well as care professionals, and aiming to have a celebration event towards the end of the year. Look out for updates on our website and forthcoming newsletters.
Keeping in touch with Resilink and Skype
With our RESILINK service relatives and friends of our residents can view online care plans as well as daily reports written by our care staff. Some relatives are using this service every day to keep in touch with the day to day life of their loved ones. Over the last couple of months we have also been working hard to secure the technology to enable us to Skype the friends and families of our residents. We are now able to video call family members who live all over the world, bringing people closer together. And what’s more, these services are 100% free to use!
Please have your say!
We were very moved when the young grandson of one of our residents recently wrote to say that since moving into our home his nan seems have a new lease of life and a reason to live and that the home seems like one big family. It is unsolicited feedback like that which is the icing on the cake as far as we are concerned.
We also value the independently verified feedback and reviews from relatives and care professionals which links to relevant websites such as NHS Choices. It’s very easy to leave a review or a comment on the Disc Directory service that we use so I urge you to have a go!
If you require further information relating to any of the above topics please contact me by following this link.