Taupo Rest Home with a great community approach...

It's great to see residential care facilities that engage with their community. For some facilities it's a natural way of life, either due to their location in a smaller community or the philosophy that they embrace, or it's due to the passion and focus of certain individuals that make community and volunteer involvement a key element in the activities of the resthome, hospital or aged care facility.

There are many stories of residential care facilities doing amazing things to include residents in community endeavors (and we expect to add further stories as time goes on). One such story I came across was when I popped into a rest home on my way through Taupo.

On talking with the team at St Johns Wood, I found out they had recently started a scheme that they've named 'Adopt a Grandparent'. The premise is simple – go out into the community, engage with a lower decile school and invite their primary aged children to some of the activities programs where the facility have paid to bring entertainers in, so the event can also be shared with a class of children that may not normally have the funds for this sort of activity. The facility would then invite the students to stay for afternoon tea and stories. The village manager explained to me that "the children make their own connections with a like minded resident and the residents enjoy the children’s participation and delight".

What the team at this aged care facility observed was that there were many 'transient' families where children did not have grandparents to share the little things with. By engaging with the school, the hope is that the children will form a friendship with an elder and, as such, will pop in on their way home from school to share an event or share something special that has happened. The result can be a win win for both the resident and school student.

This small local rest home is also exploring offering their lounge for a Plunket group once a month to share a morning tea so as residents can mix and mingle with the babies and new mothers, sharing their knowledge and as well as the new mums sharing 'what’s more fashionable' in todays world.

For St Johns Wood, its clearly about linking into the community.