Walk into Baycliffe Lodge on a Tuesday morning, and you’d learn things are a little different. Before breakfast, the Ajax long-term care home starts its day with piano playing, singing and dancing.
Morning Melodies is the brainchild of the home’s music therapist Elaine Ma, who was encouraged to use her expertise in whatever way she felt could enhance the lives of seniors living at Baycliffe. The program was introduced several weeks ago with positive results; residents are happier and hungrier. Staff are also enjoying the musical mornings.
“I would never have thought to have the entire dining room involved (with music therapy),” says the home’s program manager Kate Pelton, who commends Elaine on creating the successful approach.
Elaine’s story is the first of a new series for the Ontario Long Term Care Association (OLTCA) exploring how long-term care homes are recognizing the skills and knowledge of their employees and providing opportunities for them to act on their initiative resulting in better care.
Axiom News generative journalist Ryan Rogers created the questions for the series. He expects the stories to share best practices across the long-term care sector, while highlighting the value that comes from recognizing staff members’ work, which is a priority for the OLTCA.
“We can see pretty clearly in (the OLTCA) standards of conduct that they believe in certain ways for their members to conduct their business, and part of that is employees should be recognized for their skills and knowledge. So, we were looking for ways to highlight the ways in which they are being recognized, and the results that come out of it, too,” says Ryan.
The series will engage a cross section of the association’s 426 member homes. Each story will be posted on the front page of the OLTCA’s website, and shared through its bi-weekly e-newsletter, sent to nearly 4,000 people, as well as through Twitter.
In addition to highlighting and building momentum for a key OLTCA priority, Ryan says the stories can result in excitement and pride for the long-term care homes being featured.
Ryan says he already experienced this when interviewing Kate about how she encourages staff to use their creativity in programming.
“She was pretty excited about the impact it was making,” he says.
To read the OLTCA’s news service, the Morning Report, click here.
If you would like to learn more about our Stakeholder News Services, contact peter@axiomnews.ca.
If you have feedback on this article, please contact the newsroom at 800-294-0051, or e-mail camille(at)axiomnews.ca.
