LEC commends team for doing ‘a great job’ while she was away

Tight team and strong communication ensured programming ran smoothly at Springdale when Sonia Murney was on a three-month leave

The Springdale Country Manor life enrichment team is being praised by life enrichment co-ordinator (LEC) Sonia Murney for doing “a great job” organizing resident programming and overseeing the department while she was on a three-month leave recovering from surgery.

Sonia, who returned to her position at the Peterborough-area long-term care home in early June, says the team of four life enrichment aides work well together and they are all great communicators, which, she says, are key strengths that are important to maintaining any department in a home.

In fact, Sonia says communication is one of the team’s greatest attributes, and having a small life enrichment team allows for strong communication.

“They touch base with each other, they see each other from shift to shift, so that makes it easy, and they are a very good group,” Sonia tells The OMNIway.

“They did a great job. They did the calendars, they communicated with me when needed, but they figured things out for themselves.”

One major event that happened while Sonia was away was the Spring Fling, an Olympic-style event that encouraged friendly competition and lots of fun and laughter among residents.

The Spring Fling had been planned for an earlier date, but due to an outbreak at the home, it had to be postponed until April.

The event consisted of daily competitive activities from Monday to Friday for two weeks. Events included discus throwing, paper airplane flying, bull’s-eye shooting, a beanbag toss and bowling.

The Spring Fling has been a programming highlight so far this year, and Sonia commends the team for making it happen.

“They pulled it off, no problem; hands-down, a top-notch job, and I had total faith in them, I knew they could do it,” she says.

Life enrichment aide (LEA) Nikki English says working without Sonia was a change but everything went to plan.

“At first I was terrified, to be honest, but I got used to it after a bit,” she says.

LEA Keyanna O’Rourke says she knew the life enrichment team was tight and that team members worked well together, so she was confident everything would run smoothly.

“I feel that because we are so used to working with each other and we work in a group when we are on the same shifts, I found it pretty natural – it was like that every day for three months,” she says.

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PHOTO CAPTION: Springdale LEC Sonia Murney (centre), pictured here with LEAs Nikki English (left) and Keyanna O’Rourke, says the life enrichment team, says the life enrichment team did an excellent job of overseeing the department while she was on a three-month leave.