 If you are lucky enough to become a facility’s activity director you have a lot of responsibility. Like it or not, you are instantly a leader in your department as well as throughout the facility. Your activity staff will look to you, for better or worse, for an example of what to do and as someone to follow.
There are many components to being a great leader, and I don’t intend to cover all of them in this post. However, there was one that hit me yesterday that is crucial for any position you may find yourself in life.
When people in your facility look to you, do they think you follow through what you believe in? This can make all the world to the staff underneath you. If they believe you really follow what you say you believe, they are more likely to get on board with your new ideas. If they can see a discrepancy between your words and your actions, you’ll run into problems. I’ve been slowly implementing a new approach to planning our activity calender that really involves our program’s participants. Yesterday, I was challenged by one of my staff to prove that I was willing to do what I’ve been preaching.
 This year we really worked hard on putting together a lot of patriotic activities for our program. Yesterday we had a group of folk singers come by and sing patriotic songs, and we wrote letters to soldiers last week as well.
We also have a few ladies who really enjoy making crafts, no matter how big or small. We’ve found that one of the crafting activities that seems to work well for a variety of independence levels is crunching up little squares of colored tissue paper and pasting them to an object or a drawing.
To get an activity like this ready all you really need are some sheets of colored tissue paper and scissors, or actually, I prefer using one of those long blades with a grid base (I forget what to call it) so you can cut up one inch squares quicker. We put these flat squares of tissue paper into small cups, like old margarine containers, and put them around the table for our members to choose from. They can then scrunch the paper into whatever shape they’d like and then dip it in some glue to paste it to their shape. Also, for those who have trouble with individually dipping each piece, you can spread glue onto the shape first and then scrunch the paper up and drop them on.
Have you ever asked your residents to bead a necklace at your facility? Do you have bright colored plastic round beads that remind you of 1st grade? I’d like to ask you to consider whether beading a necklace is an activity that most people do on their own when they are grown adults. For most adults, the thought of putting random colored beads on a piece of plastic seems boring and childish. So why do we who work with older adults seem to think it should be great fun for them?
When you’re trying to make sure an activity is age appropriate, its a great idea to look to the real world to see what grown adults are actually used to doing. Ask yourself what materials they are used to working with. For what purpose do they carry out this activity?
In truth, adult beading is almost an oxymoron. However, when you look around, jewelry making is something that some grown women have turned into a hobby. Today, there are kits that let you piece together earrings, necklaces, and bracelets that many adults purchase for their own enjoyment. One of my co-workers made everyone earrings for Christmas this past year! Here are some tips to make this simple activity more comfortable and rewarding for our residents and members:
 Recycle these as an activity! Activities in our facilities fall into three categories, supportive, maintenance, and empowerment. Supportive activities require staff or volunteer support for the member or resident to participate in. Maintenance activities help a resident maintain their physical and cognitive abilities as well as their sense of socializing, spirituality, and emotional health. Empowerment activities help the resident re-develop a sense of purpose in their own life. Often, these involve self-expression, personal responsibility, and/or self-respect.
When working with the dementia population, most of our activities fall into the supportive and maintenance categories. It is for good reason, that particular population has an inevitable decline in most cases, and we’re trying to prolong, or plateau, their lives with therapeutic recreation. Sadly, the person with dementia loses out on empowerment opportunities in our facilities because we’ve been so focused on helping them maintain what abilities they still have. We must never forget, that the person with dementia is still a person who is conscious of themself, and therefore needs opportunities of empowerment that help maintain their sense of dignity and self-respect.
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If you are lucky enough to become a facility’s activity director you have a lot of responsibility. Like it or not, you are instantly a leader in your department as well as throughout the facility. Your activity staff will look to you, for better or worse, for an example of what to do and as someone to follow.
