compensate for lost abilities while supporting clients ’ independence , engagement and participation .
The service manager was supportive of all changes ; some were made immediately after our placement ended , with others dependent on further funding being secured in the future .
With the challenges clients faced in navigating the environment in mind , we wanted to create an orientation board for the front entrance , which would display the time , date , weather and daily activity schedule .
We took this as an opportunity to create a group , where clients could have meaningful roles and responsibilities regarding changes in the service . The tasks within sessions were graded and adapted to match the occupational strengths and interests of the clients to encourage participation and involvement .
The project provided clients with a sense of accomplishment , while the result of the project supported clients to begin their day feeling more orientated . For these sessions we created a tracking observation sheet based on the Model of Human Occupation ( MOHO ). This enabled us to gather valuable information about clients ’ interests and occupational strengths that could be shared with the staff team for future sessions .
As it was apparent that the team of support workers were at the heart of the service , we made it a priority to build positive relationships with them . To allow us to gain a more in-depth understanding of their individual perspectives around their confidence , abilities and views of the service , we created an anonymous staff questionnaire based on the Person-Environment- Occupation-Performance ( PEOP ) model .
This enabled staff to reflect on their roles , while also thinking about the impact of the environment and how suited their skillsets were to the sessions they were facilitating .
Responses revealed that an issue affecting many of the staff was feeling a lack of confidence when supporting clients with dementia . To
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April 2024 OTnews 29