Senior Activities Assistant

Activities Assistant Care Home Residential -Dementia Muswell Hill 35 hours per week £13.50 per hour leading to £13.80 per hour after three months probation Purpose of Role / Job Summary To lead the activities team within the Clients home in delivering a dynamic, engaging, meaningful and entertaining activities programme that reflects each home’s community abilities and wishes, whilst ensuring the activities programme covers seven days. Key Responsibilities & Duties * To ensure that each resident has their own individual, life history and, using these, create profiles in our ‘This is Me’ electronic resident records. * Introduce and manage an ‘Activities Forum’ in each home to establish preferred activities from residents and adapt the programme, where possible, to incorporate these requests. * In partnership with the home, produce a weekly activities schedule that reflects the home’s community, and dependencies, sharing with residents and relatives. * Develop relationships locally to integrate with the local community and encourage intergenerational activities. * Manage the Activities budget and team for the Care Homes group. * Encourage the development of a committed group of volunteers with a range of experience to support activities and engagement in all homes. 1. Plan and Deliver Personalised and Meaningful Activities * To ensure that a weekly schedule of meaningful activity for each home is provided, personalised to each resident’s likes, dislikes, needs and abilities, helping them try new things and continue to take part in the hobbies and activities that make them who they are. * To ensure that there are planned activity programmes delivered across the homes, so that both the ground floor and HDU have access to either,1-to-1 and/or group basis, including external entertainment within the budget, therapists and events, taking place 7 days a week, including evenings. * When considering the activities programme, ensure a balance of mental, emotional, spiritual and physical elements within the programme. * Maintain the ability to be flexible and change things according to factors such as the weather, resident’s preferences and mood. * Differentiate activity for people living with dementia (e.g. using the Pool Activity Level Instrument and resources or linked to “dementia awareness” training). * Involve residents in the day-to-day running of the home to the extent that they were able and chose to do so. * Ensure there are resources that support meaningful activity available in communal areas that residents can “dip into” (e.g. games, balls, puzzles etc.); displays of clothing (e.g. wedding dresses and suits) and sensory resources such as fiddle boards fixed to walls or baskets of handbags, soft toys or clothing available for residents to use. * Liaise with the home manager to ensure that the care team can help support the delivery of a comprehensive range of daily activities (including on weekends and bank holidays). * Publicise the programme to residents and relatives: send out weekly programmes and timely notifications of upcoming events. * Ensure all plans are uploaded onto SharePoint for monthly audit reporting. * Ensure there are regular 1-to-1 visits to residents who do not take part in group activities and agree targets on number of such visits per week. * Liaise with other activities staff to share ideas on programming and external events. * Attend both resident and staff meetings. * Create a strategy for use of technology resources such as touchscreen / tablet computers to support meaningful activity. 1. Record who is engaging in activity * Provide guidance and feedback on best practice related to the recording, and reporting of activities in each home. * Train and support staff across departments to record their engagement with residents. * Maintain assessments and profiles as required (see section 1). * Maintain daily records of residents taking part in activities in the CMS system. * Maintain and review risk assessments for all activities and trips. 4. Budget and Manage the Service * In conjunction with your line manager, agree a budget for the delivery of the activities programme in each home and monitor costs on a quarterly basis. Produce a quarterly report with the help of the Finance Manager. * Evaluate the quality of outside entertainment and external visiting therapists every six months and make recommendations on changes as appropriate