CAREGiver CONNECT
MAY 20
C AR EGi ver-C on n ec t MAY 2020
May 2020
POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS TO START YOUR DAY
What’s inside
Have you ever felt the need to break away from your critical inner voice? When practiced, positive affirmations can help you end the negative thought patterns that may be holding you back from living your life to the fullest.
- Love
The essential element is choosing to remain in love” (rather than hate or fear…) and that means remaining in love to ourselves, and… others… kind words, kind gestures to others are sometimes easier… It is a simple gift. Also, be sure to talk to yourself in that same loving and kind way too. The art of treating yourself like you would a loved one.
- The Positives
- COVID Update - IMPORTANT - Tips from Brad - Pen Pals - Music! - Beneficial Apps - Mindfulness - Office Family
C AR EGi ver-C on n ec t MAY 2020
Love
EVERY MOVEMENT IN THE UNIVERSE IS A MOVEMENT TOWARD LOVE. We are living in a time of great change. Many thinkers and seers agree that humanity and the planet Earth are evolving at a quickened pace, and that this evolution will necessarily be severe and seemingly chaotic at times. It is natural for people to react with fear, because these changes will doubtless bring some level of difficulty and loss to many of us. Since we chose to be here, we are capable and ready to rise to the challenges in which we find ourselves.
However, it is essential that we all remember that our souls chose to be here at this time and to be part of this process. Every movement in the universe is a movement toward love. This is true even in situations that appear on the surface to be the opposite of loving.
It is helpful to reflect on our own lives and make any changes necessary to fully support humanity and the planet into the state of love. When we open our hearts in love instead of closing them in fear, we serve the divine process!
We are all powerful spirits who took form at this time in order to serve our fellow humans, our planet, and the universe. As we find ways we can serve, our fear dissipates. We may serve by remaining calm and loving with our children and our families, even as the situation seems dark. We may serve by sending money to people who need financial assistance. We may serve by going out into the world and actively helping to rebuild lives. Regardless of what actions we choose to take, the essential element will be the internal gesture of choosing to remain in love. This is all that is needed. When it is difficult to remain in love, we may always call upon our unseen helpers: the teachers and guides who are always with us. All we need to do is ask and then trust that we are being helped. The guidance we receive is love itself, showing us the way.
COV I D U P D A T E!
IMPORTANT! REPORTING CHANGES IN A CLIENT:
Each of our clients who is receiving aged care assistance, must have a Care Plan in place to ensure consistent and on-going care needs are met. One of the responsibilities of our CAREGiver’s is to identify changes they observe in their clients (e.g. functional, cognitive or physical - such as weight loss) and effectively report these to our office through notes in client journals and communication with our office. These notes contribute to reviews and updating of Care Plans, thus essential that your notes are factual, objective and relevant, which can easily be achieved by following the The AWACCS Instrument Principles:
LOOKING AT THE POSITIVES For Natasha, Executive Assistant at Home Instead, remote working during isolation means more time to connect with family and the chance to collaborate with the team using new technology and tools. Here's her story: "When the office team discussed working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic, I wasn’t sure how it would work as I was in the routine of working in the office with the rest of the office team. Once I was in the swing of things I appreciated how amazing technology is. With the constant contact over Teams messenger, email and phone I still felt connected and realised you can work from anywhere. The main part I have missed is seeing the office team on a daily basis and having contact with our CAREGivers and Clients. The silver lining of self-isolation is being made to stop instead of always rushing somewhere and spending more time with my family. My sons who are 3 and 4 have loved having mum home."
Being in isolation gives us a great opportunity to reflect on what we're grateful for. What are you most grateful for these days?
C AR EGi ver-C on n ec t MAY 2020
Tips from Brad, Our Care Manager
Personal care – One of the most basic needs of our clients is to maintain intact, healthy, moisturized skin. Intact skin is the body's first line of defence against the invasion of microorganisms, provides a protective barrier from numerous environmental threats, and facilitates retention of moisture. After showering it is highly advised to apply a moisturising barrier cream from head to toe to your clients skin such as Optiderma or QV. Respite – While providing respite to clients carer’s/family take the lead while the client is safely resting and do something extra special: being either light domestics, meal preparation, watering the plants etc. anything that will further impact the reduction of carer stress to the clients carer/ family will truly make their day. Meal Prep – Collect the free recipe magazines available from Coles & Woolworths and go through them with your client allowing them to pick out an eye catching meal to prepare for them. Plan to get ingredients during shopping and/or cut out and place in the journal for other CAREGiver’s in the team to prepare. Whenever appropriate involve your client in participating in prepping and the cooking of the dish enhancing their independence. Companionship – Going through the clients photo albums with them allows for opportunities of learning more about each other via stories of the photo’s and opening up for other future conversations. A picture tells a thousand words and can also break the ice with your client sharing their heart with you about their many sensory memories that represent the picture caught in time.
Domestic – Gumption is an old school multi-purpose cleanser, apply a small amount with a cloth or scourer to the surface and give a generous wipe over, follow up by wiping over again with water to remove the residue. The area cleansed will be left restored and sparkling like new. Amazing results can be seen while used on ceramic cook tops, basins, tiles, stainless steel and other similar surfaces. Following the Gumption clean go back over the surfaces with a disinfectant to ensure that 99.9% of germs are also removed. Transport – Taking your client out to a doctor’s appointment? Why not accentuate the outing to include a drive through take away coffee, a great chat, a sing along or even opt to take the scenic route home. Drives along the water, through forests, up to lookouts and going past heritage listed icons provide relaxation and great talking points with your clients and will also give them further talking points to share with their friends and family. Mobility – Depending on your clients limits encourage exercise where ever possible, be that either: a walk to the letter box, balloon throwing, sit to stand repeats, pilates on the bed or even moving from one chair to another. Two key things to always remember is if your client has an exercise plan outlined by a allied health professional to follow that plan and also increase fluid intake based on the level of exercise.
Now, here’s our challenge to all CAREGiver’s:
We would love for you to take and share with us a picture of your clients participating in the categories of: Meal Prep, Companionship, Transport or Mobility. Along with the clients consent we will feature the picture in next month’s newsletter. Please send the pictures through to eastbrisbane@homeinstead.com.au, the most inspiring and creative picture will result in the CAREGiver & client both receiving a lovely gift!
C AR EGi ver-C on n ec t MAY 2020
Pen Pals
SIMPLE GESTURES OF
WHY NOT?
How seniors can get involved
The Home Instead Pen Pal program is for seniors to stay connected whilst they are in social isolation. Our aim is to help boost moral during the pandemic and help the senior community feel connected with others
KINDNESS
1. To register a senior to become a PenPal use the form on the PenPals web page :(www. homeinstead.com.au/penpals). Register their contact details so we can connect them with a Pen Pal (make sure you check the ‘receive a message’ option in the first drop-down box). Family members or carers are encouraged to help seniors to complete their registration. If a senior in an aged care facility does not have access to email, you can request that the messages are sent to the facility admin team, to then be distributed.
2. Check your email. After HomeInstead receives the request, the senior will receive a confirmation email. Once we have received a message from the community, we will forward it to the senior.
C AR EGi ver-C on n ec t MAY 2020
Music
Reccomendations
THIS IS A LIST OF 9 ALBUMS! This is simply a quick list of 9 excellent albums that I love with all me heart. Music is a gift, let it sooth your soul. - Jacob
Blood Bank by Bon Iver
The Essential Bill Withers
In Our Nature by Jose Gonzalez
Play by Moby
Home Again by Micahel Kiwanuka
James Taylor Greatest Hits
The Big Chill Soundtrack
My First Car by Vulfpeck
(R.I.P)
Bookends by Simon & Garfunkel
HISC’s FAVOURITE POSITITIVITY APPS!
HAPPIFY This iOS application can help you think positively as it helps you set goals in different “tracks” of your life, such as helping you improve your confidence. The app has several different tracks, each of which has its own little quizzes, games and activities. These activities are often as simple as asking you to list things you are grateful for or noticing positive words in a game and avoiding negative ones. You can subscribe to a yearly or monthly service to take advantage of the full menu of positive activities.
POZIFY When it comes to bringing positivity to your life, Pozify is one of the most effective apps out there, because it rewards you for being a positive person. The developers at Pozify believe that it’s important to make sure positive news gets as much exposure as negative news, and they’ve built that into the fabric of the app’s functionality. Pozify works is simple: The app rewards people for creating and spreading valuable content on the web.
C AR EGi ver-C on n ec t MAY 2020
Mindfulness
SLEEP WELL, BE WELL It’s hard to be resilient when we’re running on empty, when we’re not taking care of our basic physiological needs. Sleep is a crucial but underappreciated aspect of not just our resilience but our overall health. The science is becoming pretty unequivocal – the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life. Yet with so many factors preventing us from getting our much needed shut-eye: long workhours, anxiety, increased use of technology/ screen time at night, alcohol and caffeine intake – Getting our 8 hours in is easier said than done. Over thinking and worrying can be huge barriers to a good night’s sleep. Last week we looked at how mindfulness can help us manage stress and our thoughts. As we practice mindfulness we become more aware of our thinking and our triggers, which allows us the space to make a choice as to if, how and when we respond to them – this means we can choose appropriate times to work through our thoughts and stress, rather than at 3 am in the morning when we need to be sleeping. As well as some of the techniques we discussed last week, some other mindfulness practices to help you with sleep include: (up there )
MINDFUL TIPS TO HELP YOU SLEEP BETTER: • Keep a book next to your bed where you can write down you thoughts and worries, promising your mind you will address these the next day • Plan your next day at the end of the current day – or just after dinner if you must, so that you can then fully unwind and not think about work for the rest of the evening • If you find yourself awake in the middle of the night try sitting up and meditating in bed. If you start to get sleepy (success!) simply end the meditation and drift off to sleep
More next month!
If you wanted to learn more in the mean time you can go on the authors blog: https:// www.goodplace.com.au/ new-blog OR you can buy and read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
East Brisbane & Ipswich and Brisbane South Family
Owners
Client Services Manager
Gai Stewart
Brad Baumann Care Manager
Gabby La Budde
Gayle Reid Finance Officer
Vibeke Thomsen
Myles & Gin Beaufort
Care Coordinator
Recruitment & Engagement Officer
C AR EGi ver-C on n ec t MAY 2020
This family
Shenee Cave
Client and CAREGiver Support Specialist
Maximilian Beaufort Assistant Care Manager
is your fami
ly too
Natasha Robbie Executive Assistant & Quality Manager
Jacob Farley
N.O.R.C Facilitator & Graphic Designer
Donna-Jo (DJ) Ratcliffe Care Coordinator Team Leader
All the other CAREGivers! They are your family too!
East Brisbane 3277 3077 eastbrisbane@ homeinstead.com.au
Ipswich & Brisbane South
3288 8841 ipsbrissouth@ homeinstead.com.au
48 Wharf St, Kangaroo Point, QLD 4169