Report from Ben Chard, RAO Coordinator at Glengarry
It has been a busy beginning of the year for Glengarry. I’m pleased to report that our Food Lovers program has had great success with a high participation and engagement level as well as positive feedback with residents saying they are looking forward to the next session.
Food Lovers sessions take place fortnightly and are a new cooking and tasting sensory focussed activity group. Pikelets, omelettes, French toast, slider burgers and chocolate croissants are just some of the items on the menu. The cooking group promotes a home-like environment in which residents can facilitate the activity, as well as have a few laughs along the way. It also promotes reminiscence and social interaction between members of the group sharing life experiences.
The Glengarry Gardening Club has recently expanded to two external planting beds in Elouera Garden. With the support of our Maintenance Officer Ole, we had a small group made up of residents and a Glengarry RAO go to Bunnings to choose and purchase our herbs and vegies for our herb bed; and some flowers for our floral bed. Residents have ownership of the Gardening Club and it provides a meaningful program for them having the responsibility of looking after the garden. The Gardening Club meets once a fortnight for maintenance sessions of our garden beds plus some socialising and story swapping sessions.
Finally, our new regular Pet Therapy activity has also brought huge benefits; our new mini lop-eared rabbits, Betty and Boo, live in the back Karinya Garden in their large hutch which has been getting a lot of attention from residents, staff and visitors. Residents assist staff with feeding, checking water, rotation of hay and petting these two cute additions to Glengarry. The responsibility of caring for the two rabbits, as well as the instant improvement in mood, has already shown this is a successful addition to our residents’ daily life at Glengarry.
We plan to continue to implement new activity ideas here at Glengarry and across each Twilight home.
BUDDING ARTISTS AT GLADES BAY GARDENS
The Art Therapy class which started at Glades Bay Gardens in mid-March is also proving to be very successful. RAOs report that the residents are really enjoying the art therapy and always looking forward to the next class. You can see the products of their creativity in our photos of some recent works.