When you walk into a home often people say that you can feel the atmosphere
and in many ways that's
the responsibility of the care manager to help set the tone
for what a place looks and feels like for the staff and for the people
obviously who live in their home.
That it's a welcoming place, that it's a relaxed atmosphere
that it's attentive to people's needs and then it's open to learning
when things don't always go well.
I think a positive culture is
extremely important in an organization
and I think that as a therapist
motivating and actually changing
residents all the time really for the better
you want to be able to encourage and motivate other staff members
to do the same within the team and that's something which I like to feel it's a
very strong goal for me
so I engage with all other members of the team, support workers, nurses
in some places, activities coordinators, garden therapists
I try to connect with them all
to bring about this change really, which is really important.
If we don't do that - and I think coming from a hospital background
I've been in a big multidisciplinary team working situation,
that team working is particularly important.
We do a lot of things at Garth House to ensure that we
maintain and encourage a positive culture and we do it in a variety of ways.
So we celebrate success if somebody is successful at gaining an award for instance,
gaining a qualification, we normally have a celebration
we make an award
we give them a cake or flowers.
We've had a birthday celebration today
one of my carers has turned 25 so we've surprised him with a cake, a bottle of wine
we sang happy birthday to him.
That encourages positivity, it encourages motivation
it encourages a happy workforce so we try to do things like that.
We try to ensure honesty and transparency
so if we're doing something well we celebrate it
if we're doing something not quite so well we talk about it
and then we share that with everybody.
And by doing that and not
making a big deal of things - obviously when things go seriously wrong we have to
do the right reporting
and we're accountable for that
but we still - it's a no blame culture
because we're all responsible.
And that's why I like this tool as well
that it allows you to look at how well you're developing look at ways
you can change things
and look at how you're progressing.
It's essential not to be frightened of change
it's the only thing that that keeps things moving and
if you take two steps forward and three back
at least by taking three steps back
you've got an opportunity to reflect and
make sure that you can take further steps
in order to move in the right direction so even though the change
could be feel as if it's quite negative
you can usually create a positive out of that.
I was a judge for some local care awards
and one of the nominees was up for a prize
and what I was particularly attracted to about the winner was the fact that
they weren't actually a care deliverer they were a member of the admin team
but on their days off they would go back into the home and
and do things such as at Christmas this particular person and their husband
went into the home dressed as Father Christmas and his elf and
and handed out small presents to all the residents there
which was really well received and
then there were lots of other examples in the entry which made you think
you know what? Your faith in human nature is still there.
You see we see and read about so many bad things
when it comes to care homes
but this was one of lots of examples
that I'm fortunate enough to see.