Social & Activity Support for Older People

Too often older people are seen to simply need ‘feeding’ and support with personal care, yet the older years can be a time for discovering of talents, new interests, and fun.

This one day course aims to help support workers develop programmes and skills so as to enable older people to live full, interesting and rewarding lives. It also looks at a range of strategies for enhancing the lives of people with Dementia so as to help preserve competencies as long as is possible.

The course certificate will provide NVQ and CIS links.

Learning objectives:

By the end of this course learners should be able to understand:

• The human drive towards growth:
        -Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
        -Carl Rogers’ 3 Core Conditions for growth
• The aging process. Is it necessary for us to withdraw from life as we age?
• Challenging assumptions about aging and older people
• What we mean by Anti-Ageist practice
• Getting older...the potential losses
• Getting older…the opportunities for new experiences
• How using/living in a support setting could degrade the quality of life
• There is more to life than eating, sleeping, going to the toilet and personal hygiene. Older people, like everyone
  else need to have interests, fun, entertainment, adventures, new experiences*
• What is meant by Person Centred support
• The importance of learning from the service users. They are the experts on their lives
• What is meant by the service user’s ‘Frame of Reference’
• What would be appropriate to provide ‘in house’: e.g.
        -Reminiscence groups
        -News groups
        -Baking groups
• What resources are available and what expertise could be brought in
• Why many activities would be more appropriately provided within the ‘community’
• The resources that are required and how to access these
• The process of deciding on an individual or group activity
• The need to ensure that group activities do not become a replay of ‘batch’ care
• How to draft and implement an activity plan
• The need to be mindful of Health & Safety, including Risk Assessment
• The range of activities appropriate for people with Dementia:
        -The needs for consistency and familiarity*
        -The need to provide activities that suit the particular phase of the condition
        -Multi-agency input
        -Specialist services
        -Maintaining skills and function and slowing down losses

Training methods:

• Tutor presentations
• OHP/PowerPoint
• Discussion
• Group work
• Debate
• Pairs work
• handouts

CP90/4.9