SAY YES ... TO RESIDENTS

Impro-Labo^® 

Working "Resident-oriented" and "Demand-driven"

"No rest home for me! Then I will be lived. I would lose my complete freedom."

This is a common concern of the elderly. But how do you avoid that feeling? A residential care home requires a thorough organisation, with its own set of rules. Yet the staff is not there to force the organisation on the residents, but to support them.

Everyone in the care sector is familiar with the terms 'resident-oriented' and 'demand-driven' working. But ... how do you put this into practice? How do you translate this to the work floor, and thus to each employee?

More and more residential and care centres are starting from the vision that residents must retain as much freedom of choice as possible. The elderly, whether they need care or not, are full citizens, and the task of the care centre is to allow them to enjoy a life to the full.

CARE ... for a happy face

Take CARE that the CARE you provide also CARE for the residents' happy faces, for a feeling of being at home, of self-esteem!

In this theatre performance, the audience is presented with the puzzle through real-life situations, low-threshold and recognisable for every discipline. We show situations in which the preferences of residents naturally clash with the house rules: Marie wants breakfast at an unbelievably early hour, Albert wants his dog with him, Elisabeth doesn't want diet food. Paula doesn't want to be washed. Maurice expects the cleaning to be subject to much more stringent requirements... In short, expectations that in practice are often met with a 'No'.

Always say YES?

Then we invite the caregivers to say 'Yes' ... Of course, this is not always possible on the initial question, but it is possible to say 'Yes' in the spirit of: wanting to listen and understand what is behind the question, and what need the resident has. On this basis, one can then look for a solution or alternative... In a collective brainstorm, the public is given the task of finding solutions to seemingly impossible resident questions. These practical examples show that, with a little creativity and empathy, it is possible to say 'yes' in a feasible way...

Create a strong momentum... (*)

This performance can be used as a communication tool by any care institution and will help you to invite your staff to put this vision of care into practice together.

(*) With thanks to OCMW Beveren, they invited Klein Barnum to create a tailor-made performance on the theme of 'the House of JA' especially for their staff event. This performance served as the basis for the repertoire performance.