valuing residents' stories. weaving stronger and deeper care relationships

Valuing residents’ stories - weaving deeper and wider care relationshipsElizabeth Knox Home & HospitalNena Delos Santos (RN at EKHH) and Nick Moore (The Literacy Professionals)

Close, meaningful, continuing relationships and growth are the key to eliminating 3 plagues of loneliness, helplessness and boredom.

How well do we as an Eden Alternative home understand and know our residents’ stories?

Margaret Brown (Special Projects)03/05/2023 2

Putting the person at the centre of care

“Well the war came and my friends who were at the shop – one went into the army, one went navy, the other went to a dehydration factory and I thought “Blow I’m not staying here. I’m getting out of this!’ So I applied to be a land girl. But I was too young!” Peggy

“I’ve never been married and had a lot of time on my hands. I mean if you work eight hours in a day, that leaves you with a lot of time. I wanted to know how my mind worked. So I read psychology and philosophy books. I never did a course – if you do a course you start thinking you’re an expert!” Gerald

We decided to focus on stories

Engagement with the whole Knox community

Training workshops

The evolving story

Infrastructure

• For the whole team (carers, RNs, OT, admin, the accountant, residents, families). Sessions repeated on two days and one night shift.

• Focused on speaking strategies to elicit a narrative and writing strategies to record and share it.

Workshops

• Close link with literacy skills training that has been running for 3 years at Knox (Nick)

- Unlearn “medical” practices so that stories did not become another exercise in “diagnosis”.

- Encourage and develop literacy skills in some cases.

- Keep the focus on snapshots of peoples’ lives.

Challenges

“As we were talking I could feel the relationship between us growing – every time I visited I heard a little more.” Nena, RN.

Early outcomes

“And I never knew any of this from reading her care notes.” John, RN. “Now I understand why she is as she is.” Jill, RN

Early outcomes

“I’ve enjoyed this – thinking of things I haven’t thought about in years!” Olga (resident)

Early outcomes

“He told me how he used to wash and turtle wax his tractor!”Kristen (Volunteer coordinator)

Early outcomes

“As carers, this is what we do with residents. It's just that when they first come I make a real effort to get to know them but if they have been here for a while, I just assume that's all been done.”Maria (HCA)

Early outcomes

1. Investigate the impact of the books. Have they helped make connections / start conversations?

2. Research into how narratives are helping to build meaningful care relationships at Knox.

3. Further support / encouragement and literacy skills development for staff, volunteers. Business as usual!

4. Stories send a challenge to society’s perceptions of elders and views of ageing as a process of decline.

Next steps

- Residents who have given their input: Peggy, Gerald, Frances, Sarah and James.- The care staff at Elizabeth Knox Home & Hospital particularly carers Maria and Langi.- The management team – Jill, Janan, Charlene and Margaret for driving this one.- The Board at Knox for backing it. - Photographer Gareth Morgan for use of your beautiful woven flax photo.

Acknowledgements