At HC-One, we believe in caring with kindness across our family of care homes in England, Scotland and Wales.
To deliver our kind, caring approach for people living with dementia, our homes are supported by a dedicated team of Dementia Care Managers, who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to support people living with dementia and their families.
Here, we follow in the footsteps of Dementia Care Manager, Amy Pepper, for a day to see how she helps our homes care with kindness for people living with dementia.
8am
My day starts at my computer, checking my emails for any requests or queries I have received from the homes I support.
Queries can cover a number of topics, from helping organise dementia care training for our care home teams, to supporting homes to reduce or prevent distress experienced by those living with dementia.
8:30am
As a Dementia Care Manager, I am often out visiting homes to offer my guidance and support, so now I hop in my car and start the journey to the home I am visiting today. They have requested my support because they want some advice on things they can do to make the environment more engaging and interesting for the people with dementia that live there.
When I arrive, I talk to the Home Manager and seek to understand more about the environment, and the way people engage and interact with it.
I then spend some time in the home, looking at the communal areas, and observing how people engage with the space. I also spend time talking with the people who live there and our colleagues caring for them. Often small changes can make a big difference. I leave the home with an action plan for creating some interactive spaces, or ‘life stations’ in the home.
2:30pm
After another drive I arrive at my next visit of the day. It is my second visit to this home, and I am here to deliver a training course to their team on advanced communication skills and dementia.
All of our dementia communities have access to dementia training, and the module I am delivering today will support colleagues to enhance their communication skills.
This is really important as communication can become difficult for people with dementia, so we need to be able to tailor our communication to the needs of the person, and to be able to understand communication from the person, particularly if speech is now difficult.
5pm
I end the day with an online consultation with one of my homes who are seeking advice around reducing distress for people living with dementia.
On the call, I talk them through all the possible causes for distress, which may include physical factors, environmental factors or elements of a person’s life story and history.
I also talk through strategies for delivering care that may help reduce the risk of distress, and make plans to visit in person tomorrow so I can work alongside the team to help them put these strategies in to practice.
End of the day
On my drive home I reflect on the day – I feel proud to work for an organisation that puts kindness at the heart of what we do. It is a privilege to be able to work alongside the dedicated and professional teams that provide care in our homes, and I end the day feeling that I have made a real difference to people I have supported.
We are proud of our colleagues like Amy who work hard every day to ensure that the people living in our homes are supported to live better in each moment of every day.
To find out more about how you can make a difference as part of our care home teams at HC-One, please visit: apply.hc-one.co.uk..