Celebrate National Caregivers Day – the third Friday of each February – with your residents as you provide a fun activity in which your residents can show their appreciation and kindness to the care staff of your facility. Schedule a few activities on Friday, February 16th that allow your residents to make a gift, give a gift, or be a gift.
Make a Gift
Gather supplies for residents to show off their artistic ability by making gifts that can be given to your care staff.
For instance, assist residents with creating thank you cards to hand out to each of your facility’s care staff. For your more artistic residents, provide them with colored pencils and markers where they can create beautiful pictures on note cards that can be addressed to your care staff. However, for those residents who are less artistic, simply provide them with pre-drawn greeting cards, in which residents only need to use water to paint over the cards to see the images come to life. Finally, if you’re short on time, then skip the painting and drawing, and instead use store-bought greeting cards. Simply set up a fun signing activity in your Activity Room in which you address the cards to each member of your care staff. Then invite residents to stop in to sign each of the cards. Have residents sit around a large table, and then have them pass the cards around to make sure that they sign each one.
Another option for gift-making is to help residents create small tokens of appreciation that your care staff can wear or use. For example, supply residents with markers and colored pencils to decorate heart pins that your care staff can wear while at work. In addition, consider having residents decorate planters with paint and markers to give to staff just in time for their upcoming spring plantings.
Give a Gift
Think of fun ways that your residents can give to your facility’s care staff, like hosting a fun awards ceremony to honor the staff. For the event, acknowledge each member of the care staff by passing out certificates. Before the activity, set up plenty of seating to ensure residents are there to applaud and honor the staff members as their names are announced. In addition, as a gift, pass out caring bracelets that your staff can wear in celebration of the work that they do.
Additionally, be sure to include a few food-baking activities as a way that your residents can give gifts. For instance, recruit your facility’s Baking Club to bake a few batches of cookies that can be placed in gift bags and given to the staff. Other food gifts include preparing mini donuts to decorate and pass out, as well as baking and decorating cupcakes.
Be a Gift
Encourage residents to give of their time and of themselves as they help you set up fun breaks for the care staff throughout the day. For instance, enlist the help of Dining Services to set up an omelet station in the Activity Room, and encourage staff members to stop by to get a made-to-order omelet. Get your residents involved by passing out plates and utensils to the care staff as they come through to order an omelet.
If time is of the essence, then simply set up a few “stations” throughout your facility that allow the care staff to stop in to refuel on fun snacks like a cookie station where staff members can grab a bag of cookies, or even an oatmeal and coffee station, in which the care staff can stop in to quickly make a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of coffee. Encourage your residents to help “man” the stations so that they can offer assistance and direct the care staff on where to go in each of the stations.
Find more ideas from Notjustbingo on the S&S blog here.
About Not Just Bingo:
Not Just Bingo is an online resource of fun, senior activity ideas for activity professionals of nursing homes and assisted living facilities. They have been providing fun activity ideas online since 2009, and continue to assist activity professionals across the country by creating meaningful and engaging activity ideas for their residents that go “beyond bingo.” Not Just Bingo feels privileged to help activity directors better the living experiences of their residents while demonstrating that a senior’s quality of life can actually improve when they move to a nursing facility!
Want even more ideas each month? Visit www.notjustbingo.com for how-to activity ideas, monthly newsletters, and daily holiday ideas. You can also sign up for the Notjustbingo Membership to receive specialized activity ideas to keep your residents and staff engaged, active, and having fun!
