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Leafs lose season opener, but the day was still a big win at Streamway Villa

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Residents and team members celebrate all things hockey during annual event


There’s nothing like a hockey game to bring Canadians together, and there’s no day during the regular NHL season that gets fans more revved up than opening day.

The Streamway Villa life enrichment team tapped into that enthusiasm on Oct. 12.

As has become a tradition at the Cobourg, Ont. long-term care home, residents and staff dedicated the Toronto Maple Leafs’ opening game to all things hockey.

During the day, residents and team members wore their favourite hockey jerseys, T-shirts and caps. Residents were treated to beer and popcorn and got to play hockey trivia, explains life enrichment co-ordinator Laurie Kracht.

In the evening, everyone gathered to watch the Leafs play the Montreal Canadiens.

It’s NHL tradition that the Maple Leafs – who were clearly the crowd favourite at Streamway – and Canadiens play their first game of the year against each other.

This year’s opener, which was played in Montreal, saw the Habs beat the Leafs 4-3.

Last year residents and team members also got together to watch the opening game of the season. The Leafs beat the Habs 2-1 in that contest.

While most of the residents and team members are Maple Leafs fans, Laurie says there were a couple of Habs fans in the crowd.

One resident Habs fan staged a mock hockey fight with life enrichment aide Chelsea Tinney, a Leafs fan, for fun, which added another layer of entertainment to the evening.

“(The Habs fan) was our jokester for the evening; he used to live in Montreal, so that was pretty funny,” Laurie says.

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Village Green residents spend a day talking like pirates

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For the second straight year, residents and team members celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day

It may be an unusual day, but International Talk Like a Pirate Day has become a part of the culture at Village Green.

For the second straight year, the Selby, Ont. long-term care home has celebrated International Talk Like a Pirate Day with pirate-themed activities and by encouraging everyone to talk with their best pirate accent.

While International Talk Like a Pirate Day is Sept. 19, the event was postponed until Sept. 26 so residents and staff members could honour Queen Elizabeth II on the day of her funeral, notes Village Green life enrichment co-ordinator Ulana Orrick.

Between phrases that may have included things like “shiver me timbers!” and “weigh anchor and hoist the mizzen!” residents enjoyed dressing up in pirate apparel and visiting a tattoo parlour that had been set up.

A popular event of the day was a “minute to win it” digging-for-gold game, Ulana adds.

There was also an educational component to the day, with residents learning about the history of pirates and competing in pirate trivia.

According to several online sources, International Talk Like a Pirate Day was conceived by friends John Baur and Mark Summers of Oregon, USA, in 1995 during racquetball game.

As the story goes, one of the men let out a loud, pirate-like “aarrr!” after sustaining an injury on the court, and from that, an idea was born.

Ulana says one of the benefits of the day was that it engaged residents of all abilities in an entertaining program that generated lots of excitement.

“The residents all had a lot of fun,” she says.

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CPSW 2022 focusing on continuously improving safety for older adults through dialogue and action

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The 18th annual campaign runs Oct. 24-28

Canadian Patient Safety Week (CPSW) kicks off today (Oct. 24), and this year’s campaign is emphasizing the importance of continuously improving safety for older adults through dialogue and action.

On its website, CPSW organizer Healthcare Excellence Canada states that conversation is the catalyst for creating a stronger safety culture across the greater health-care continuum, which is why the theme “Press Play on Safety Conversations” was chosen for CPSW 2022.

“When we have safety conversations, it changes the way we think about safety,” the Healthcare Excellence Canada website says. “Ask questions, listen and act.”

While Canadian long-term care homes, hospitals and other health-care providers place safety as a top priority, the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in March 2020, has added another layer of safety challenges, Healthcare Excellence Canada says.

To help overcome these challenges and get safety conversations started, Healthcare Excellence Canada has created a free toolkit for health-care stakeholders to use to engage people.

The toolkit includes tips on how to provide safe spaces and initiate discussions about safety in order to work towards positive outcomes as well as a list of webinars and other virtual events care providers can use to learn more about continuous quality improvement as it relates to safety.

Given the additional strain Canadian health-care providers are experiencing today due to the pandemic, Healthcare Excellence Canada says it’s crucial to get more safety-centred conversations started to mitigate risks.

“Now more than ever, we need to focus on patient and healthcare provider safety,” the organization says. “Together we can create safety, eliminate incidents of unintended harm, as well as act on and learn from errors.”

Now in its 18th year, CPSW is an annual campaign aimed at encouraging stakeholders across the greater health-care sector to focus on safety.

Click here to learn more about Canadian Patient Safety Week.

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Contest win nets Village Green residents’ council new info boards

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An $800 gift certificate will help make the boards more eye-catching

Village Green’s residents’ council will be getting new, state-of-the-art information boards to help share important news and updates after being named one of the winners of the Ontario Association of Residents’ Councils’ (OARC’s) Show Us Your Boards contest.

The Selby, Ont. long-term care home won an $800 gift certificate to improve its residents’ council boards during a draw that was held by the OARC at the end of Residents’ Council Week.

Before Residents’ Council Week, which was Sept. 12-18, the OARC asked Ontario long-term care homes to submit photos of their residents’ council information boards along with a description of improvements residents’ council members would like to see made to their boards.

In their submission, Village Green residents’ council members stated the current boards have too much white space and the lettering needs to be larger.

“There is so much great information, but it needs to be more eye-catching,” noted one council member.

Among items included on residents’ council information boards are the monthly program and events calendar, council meeting minutes, important notices from home management and residents’ council pamphlets.

Village Green life enrichment co-ordinator Ulana Orrick says the boards are important to residents, and while the new boards will be more eye-catching, the information will be the same.

“When asked what they like about our bulletin boards here at Village Green, almost all residents said that they like that the information is up to date and complete,” Ulana says.

“They can always rely on the bulletin boards as a source of information, and they are a great way to plan their day and week.”

With their gift certificate, Village Green will create standout information boards that will continue to post the information residents want but in a more striking way, just as residents have requested, Ulana says.

Ulana says the contest helped Village Green in its continuous quality improvement journey, adding the home would have made the changes residents requested even if they didn’t win a prize.

“I am so glad that OARC came up with this contest,” she says. “It sparked a great conversation with our residents’ council about the boards, and we have some plans on how to improve them.”

Residents’ Council Week is organized each year by OARC and aims to raise awareness about the important role residents’ councils play in long-term care homes.

Residents’ councils are mandated by the Ministry of Long-Term Care and serve to empower residents and help them make the most of their experience living in long-term care homes.

If you have a story you would like to share with The OMNIway, please contact the newsroom at deron(at)axiomnews.com.

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Innovative thinking remains in high gear at OMNI homes

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Team members working in OMNI Health Care homes have been showing their ingenuity throughout autumn and using their knack for innovative thinking to create programs and ideas to help keep quality of life high for the residents they serve.

Michelle Geeves, a new life enrichment aide (LEA) at Springdale Country Manor, recently created a program that’s bringing residents back to primetime TV of the 1980s.

The program, called Laughing with the Golden Girls, sees residents watching episodes of the Golden Girls on DVD and then participating in trivia about the program and a discussion about the episode over cheesecake – the Golden Girls’ favourite dessert.

“Residents remember the Golden Girls well, and we have cheesecake because that was the Golden Girls’ favourite snack,” Michelle tells The OMNIway.

“We all laughed and thought it was fun.”

The Laughing with the Golden Girls program has prompted lots of reminiscing about the days when it was a top-rated TV show, says Springdale life enrichment co-ordinator Sonia Murney.

“Michelle gets a good group of residents together and they sit around and chat and create memories and do all kinds of fun stuff,” she says.

It has been Christmas year-round at Riverview Manor for the past 22 months, thanks to the ingenuity of one of the home’s LEAs.

With limited space in the two dining rooms for Christmas trees – due to COVID-19 pandemic protocols, residents have been spaced six feet apart during mealtimes – Tina Hutchinson came up with the idea to put trees on corner walls in December 2020.

Tina and the life enrichment team attached branches from the home’s artificial Christmas trees to the walls and decorated them with holiday-themed ornaments and lights as they do every holiday season.

After the Christmas season ended, the team decided to leave the trees up and add decorations throughout the year to match seasonal themes, Tina explains, noting the trees have remained popular conversation pieces among residents.

“So now, decorations for every season, every holiday, are put up on the tree,” she says.

At Maplewood, staff members are being encouraged to bring their pets to work from home to spend time with residents and their colleagues. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Maplewood residents received frequent and meaningful visits from St. John Ambulance therapy dogs and their handlers.

But while restrictions began easing this year and other volunteers started returning, Maplewood has been unable to get the pet therapy visits residents enjoyed prior to the pandemic, says administrator Rachel Corkery.

In some cases, volunteers have moved away or have retired from volunteering, resulting in a shortage of pet therapy volunteers.

This is where staff can help, Rachel says.

Allowing staff members to bring their pets to spend the day at the home is a three-way symbiotic relationship, she says: a pet, such as a dog, visiting the home pleases residents and staff, and the animal is getting lots of attention as well, she notes.

“It’s hard not to smile to smile when you see a pet, especially something like a little puppy, walking through the home,” she says.

LEA brings her strong creative spark to Springdale Country Manor

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Michelle Geeves says she enjoys having the freedom to create meaningful programs for residents

Since coming to Springdale Country Manor in early August, Michelle Geeves has been thriving in her role as a life enrichment aide (LEA) at the Peterborough-area long-term care home and creating innovative programs residents love.

Michelle, who has previously held positions at another long-term care home as well as with the Victorian Order of Nurses (VON), says one of the things that stands out for her at Springdale is the strong enthusiasm residents have for the programs the home offers.

“It will be 1:30 p.m. and the program will start at 2 p.m. and they’re all wanting to know what the program is and where it will be,” Michelle tells The OMNIway.

“The residents here are just so eager to participate in all the programs. I love that.”

In her two months working at Springdale Country Manor, Michelle says two of the programs she has been most proud of spearheading are Laughing with the Golden Girls and Tea and Toast.

The Laughing with the Golden Girls program starts with residents watching DVDs of the hit TV show the Golden Girls, which ran from 1985 until 1992. After the episode is over, residents will gather around a table with Michelle and discuss the episode over cheesecake, the Golden Girls’ favourite snack.

During the Tea and Toast program, residents will sit around a table and have a chat over a pot of tea and slices of thin toast served with butter.

What’s “really important” to residents is that the toast is made with thin slices of bread, and they only want “real butter” – never margarine, Michelle says.

Having the ability to bring new ideas to the table and share them with residents is important to Michelle.

“It’s amazing; I love to be creative and I feel I can definitely be creative here,” she says.

Asked what she likes best about working at Springdale, Michelle doesn’t hesitate in her response.

“The residents – I just really like the bonds that I am building and the rapport that I am building with the residents and their families,” she says.

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PHOTO CAPTION: Pictured above, Springdale Country Manor life enrichment aide Michelle Geeves and life enrichment co-ordinator Sonia Murney pose for a photo at the home Oct. 6.

Willows Estate LEC underscores the value of one-to-one programming

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Life enrichment team members will always make time for residents who need individualized programming, says Teddy Mazzuca

When it comes to finding meaningful programming to engage residents living with cognitive impairment, the wide variety of one-to-one activities Willows Estate offers are at the top of the list, says Teddy Mazzuca, the home’s life enrichment co-ordinator (LEC).

And given the value residents find with one-to-one programming, the Aurora, Ont. long-term care home’s life enrichment team members will always find time to engage residents in these activities, she adds.

Residents affected by cognitive impairment will sometimes become agitated in group settings and will be unable to participate, Teddy says. Because residents want the social and emotional benefits that come from programming, sitting down with a staff member and completing an activity that fits their needs can make a positive difference, she adds.

“And it can be anything from a hand massage to one-to-one colouring,” Teddy tells The OMNIway. “It can be a variety of programs that are strictly one-on-one.”

A popular one-to-one programming resource for residents is the home’s “sensory bin,” which is filled with a myriad of items ranging from building blocks to board games.

A favourite activity among many residents is sorting objects, and this works well in a one-to-one setting, Teddy says.

There’s also a program called Picture Perfect which sees life enrichment team members place colourful pictures of people, animals or objects on a table and the residents will engage in discussions about the pictures.

Teddy says one-to-one programs are geared to individual strengths and, therefore, each activity can be completed successfully.

While long-term care homes are at times challenged by staff shortages, life enrichment team members always find the extra time needed to spend with those residents who need it, Teddy says.

“We have to make sure we’re providing programming for each resident, whether that’s in a group setting or one-to-one,” she says.

“There is always a little bit of time, even if it’s 20 minutes in the day, where we can stop by and see someone.”

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Village Green celebrates Residents’ Council Week with a variety of events

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Raising awareness of the Residents’ Bill of Rights, creating a resident subcommittee to write council bylaws and attending a virtual concert with other LTC residents were among the highlights

Village Green celebrated Residents’ Council Week by raising awareness about the Ontario Residents’ Bill of Rights, forming a subcommittee to create residents’ council bylaws and attending a virtual concert organized by the Ontario Association of Residents’ Councils (OARC).

There are 29 rights in the Residents’ Bill of Rights which are ingrained in the Fixing Long-Term Care Act (FLTCA), 2021. These rights guarantee that all residents of Ontario long-term care homes “receive safe, consistent, and high-quality resident-centred care in settings where residents feel at home, are treated with respect, and have the supports and services they need for their health and well-being,” OARC says on its website.

To raise awareness of the Residents’ Bill of Rights, the Selby, Ont. long-term care home’s team members participated in a pop quiz that was focused on the Bill of Rights, says Village Green life enrichment co-ordinator Ulana Orrick.

For example, team members were asked if they knew where the Residents’ Bill of Rights was posted in the home as well as which residents’ rights they could name.

Since there were amendments made to the Residents’ Bill of Rights in 2021, staff members were also asked if they knew what those changes were.

Acting on a suggestion mentioned in the OARC newsletter, Village Green used Residents’ Council Week to establish a resident-led subcommittee to develop bylaws for the home’s residents’ council.

“The residents said this would be a great thing to do during Residents’ Council Week, so that’s what we did,” Ulana tells The OMNIway. “We bought some doughnuts and made some coffee and we started writing bylaws.”

To cap off the week, the OARC hosted an hour-long virtual concert featuring singer-songwriter Deidrey Francois which the residents enjoyed, Ulana says.

During the broadcast, it was announced that Village Green was one of three long-term care homes that won an $800 gift certificate that will be put towards a new residents’ council information board (read more in an upcoming OMNIway story).

Long-term-care home residents across Ontario tuned in to the performance, which was aired over Zoom. This created a strong sense of community for residents, Ulana says.

“The residents really liked seeing that other homes were also celebrating Residents’ Council Week alongside them virtually,” she says. “That was fun for everybody.”

Residents’ Council Week was Sept. 12-18. The week, which is organized each year by OARC, aims to raise awareness about the important role residents’ councils play in long-term care homes.

Residents’ councils are mandated by the Ministry of Long-Term Care and serve to empower residents and help them make the most of their experience living in long-term care homes.

If you have a story you would like to share with The OMNIway, please contact the newsroom at deron(at)axiomnews.com.

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Forest Hill’s one-to-one cart is proving to be a proactive tool for curbing agitation

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 ‘The cart not only engages the residents, it engages the life enrichment staff’

Being proactive can help prevent agitation in people affected by cognitive impairment, and one way life enrichment team members at Forest Hill stay proactive is by using a “one-to-one cart” team member Kurstin Robertson created.

Kurstin is also a college student, and as part of a class project she created this special cart which is loaded with items of varying shapes and colours that residents can sort.

Life enrichment team members will often take the cart to residents affected by cognitive impairment and invite them to choose articles to sort, explains Craig Forrest, the Kanata, Ont. long-term care home’s life enrichment co-ordinator, adding Kurstin “did a really great job” making the cart.

The blocks and other items inside the cart help create Montessori-like activities for residents which are geared towards individual strengths and allow for a high rate of success.

Craig notes that a major cause of agitation in residents living with cognitive impairment is boredom, so keeping people engaged with meaningful activities is important.

He adds that the cart’s benefits are twofold.

“The cart not only engages the residents, it engages the life enrichment staff, (and) this gives the staff another avenue to engage and spend time with residents,” he says. “This offers more to the residents.”

Craig is also commending Kurstin for creating this innovative cart, noting she has a gift for coming up with creative ideas.

“She is really good with activities; she has a real knack for it,” he says.

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The Golden Girls and cheesecake star in new Springdale program

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Laughing with the Golden Girls gets residents reminiscing while enjoying a delicious snack

The Golden Girls and cheesecake are coming together in a new Springdale Country Manor program that’s bringing back fun memories for the Peterborough County long-term care home’s residents.

The Laughing with the Golden Girls program was created by life enrichment aide Michelle Geeves, who knew that many residents were fans of the Golden Girls.

The Golden Girls, of course, was the famous American sitcom about four older women who share a home in Miami. The program aired from 1985 to 1992 and starred Betty White, Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty.

Whenever a crisis arose in the Golden Girls’ household, the women would sit around the kitchen table and solve the problem while eating cheesecake.

During the new activity, a group of residents will get together to watch an episode of the Golden Girls on DVD. Afterward, Michelle hosts a trivia about the program and the residents will sit around a table discussing the episode over cheesecake, coffee and tea – much like the Golden Girls.

“Residents remember the Golden Girls well, and we have cheesecake because that was the Golden Girls’ favourite snack,” Michelle tells The OMNIway.

“We all laughed and thought it was fun.”

Sonia Murney, the home’s life enrichment co-ordinator, says the program has been a huge hit with residents, adding Michelle did a “great job” coming up with the idea.

The Laughing with the Golden Girls program has prompted lots of reminiscing about the days when it was a top-rated TV show, Sonia says.

“Michelle gets a good group of residents together and they sit around and chat and create memories and do all kinds of fun stuff,” she says.

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