White Flag Flying! Surrendering! Admitting Insanity!

We all know bingo has singlehandedly become the epitome of stereotypes when you think about what older people do inside the walls of a retirement community. Most of us in this profession at one point or another have attempted to eradicate bingo. Substituting it with something more hip, or at least replace the perception that we are handing out well-worn cards and spinning balls in a hopper hours on end.

Early on in activity programming we fell victim to going coocoo with heart cutouts, roses, carnations, cute cards, Hershey kisses, red and pink streamers and overall idealizing the day of the 14th as if everyone who has lived past 65 had a love story to celebrate. In full transparency, I had a stereotypical viewpoint assuming my grandparents love story of 66 years of marriage was the norm.

In the beginning the “love” approach did not seem narrow-minded or unreasonable. Twelve years later, Kelly and I cringe when we observe the time and energy spent decorating, crafting, planning and focusing entirely on one “day of love” the entire 28(or 29) days of the month.

My Story on ….

Exec - Sara, can you walk down to the war room with me for a minute?

Me – Sure. What and where is the war room?

Exec - Yeah, the exec team has been working on our long-term vision and strategy for a couple weeks in the back-conference room.”

I walked in and every bit of wall was covered with ideas and plans. Then I saw my section (curious why I never got to be in the room until now, but that’s another article😊) “Resident Experience.” There was one word written…

FUN.

That’s it. Fun.

Exposure Drives Change

For any individual, business, organization or industry to improve upon itself there must be an exposure of sorts. Exposure is a frightening word that automatically invokes a bit of anxiety or maybe even an “oh crap” moment, worried that someone is going to see flaws. But it is that same exposure, anxiety, and concern that is the catalyst for change, and with the right reaction, humility and grit, success follows.

Perfection is rare. I would also say perfection in the space of senior living is impossible. Why? Insert people into the equation and suddenly we realize there are no two identical occurrences, therefore every instance has a variable you cannot replicate 100% of the time. Call it chance or call it something beautiful that keeps everyday interesting. If you wanted to work with a predictable widget, well you most likely are not interested in reading this blog.

Enrichment, Engagement, Experience, Activities, Wellness, Well-being, Lifestyle – merely an array of titles and approaches that have caused confusion, copious revisions of job descriptions, disparate standards, varying skill sets for staff, a significant variance in pay ranges and the list continues.  I myself have re-written job descriptions at every organization, but in all honesty, it merely renames the same approach, and few things change year over year. 

In senior living, we fixate on measuring engagement by checking off that someone attended a group activity. We do this month after month, compiling the data into reports. Our interpretation of this one-dimensional metric is used to tell a story of engagement, often placing people into buckets of high to low.

How to Support a Senior After a Move to a Retirement Home? Moving to a retirement home is a major life transition. Yes, it may be an improvement for an older adult who was struggling to continue living in their own home. It offers many advantages like new social connections, in-house activity programs, meal service, medication monitoring, and help with day-to-day activities.

There are new factors to the space of engagement and truth be told, they are requiring every community to have a more rounded approach and meet a multitude of personalities and scenarios. I believe there are 5 components to the "new look" of activities that are here to stay.

As I continue to pilfer through pictures, review activity calendars and talk with peers and colleagues, I have one question to ask. Are we spending all of our time and energy finding activities to "distract" residents from the reality of COVID? The first few weeks I praised staff who found creative ways to make people laugh. I tried to make a staff member dancing in a 10 ft T-Rex dino outfit in the grass go viral. I praised and showcased pictures of people dressed up like a pep rally, or spirit week. It seemed like the right approach.