C.H.O.I.C.E programs rollout for Aged Care Facilities in 2022, helping residents connect!
- ANDREW DYCE
- Jan 3, 2022
- 5 min read
Sing Us A Song understands the benefits of music based activities on the happiness, enjoyment and achieving a sense of well-being for clients living in residential aged care settings.
We also understand how achieving music goals can provide clients with a sense of self and boost self-esteem as well.
At Sing Us A Song we also understand that Residential Aged Care Facilities function around the Aged Care Standards and believe we can help facilities with meeting these requirements – in particular based around:
Standard 4: Service and Supports for daily living Standard 4 (3) (b) states that organisations must provide “ services and support for daily living that promote each consumer’s emotional, spiritual and psychological well-being”. Standard 4 (3) (c) (iii) states that organisations must enable the consumer to “do the things of interest to them”.
The past two years have been very difficult due to restrictions related to the COVID 19 pandemic and it has made it very difficult for facilities to continue to provide face to face music activities for their clients on a regular basis. The uncertainty of COVID restrictions unfortunately appear to be going to stay with us into 2022 as well.
Sing Us A Song has been working hard to try and develop a program that can provide a wide variety of musical based options that your residents can enjoy face to face, Digitally across the internet, and can be adapted to meet those times where lockdowns disrupt the day to day life at your facility.
We can provide you with easy to use digital options when necessary to still enable you to provide the activities your client’s love and enjoy.
We have come up with the following program that provides variety, with many different options
that can be specifically tailored to your facility and your client’s needs.
OUR ACTIVITIES “C.H.O.I.C.E” PROGRAM
(Care Home Options for Interactive Creative Entertainment)
The C.H.O.I.C.E program is new to Sing Us A Song and will add variety to your activities calendar while meeting a wide range of aged care standards in the process.
C.H.O.I.C.E lets the facility pick from a series of different music based activities each week/month to provide variety, difference and personalisation to their recreational offerings and calendar. This in turn promotes independence and choice for the residents and allows companies to cater to a wider group of resident interests.
PROGRAMS AVAILABLE:
Digital Music Therapy (Available Worldwide): We are proud to be offering a wonderful innovative program for aged care during the pandemic that allows facilities to run activities without the need of in person visits during lockdown.
Digital Music therapy can be run in conjunction with our other programs listed below and is a great way for organisations to offer music therapy programs during lockdowns, times of restrictions or when in precautionary settings.
Sessions are presented on Youtube, Microsoft Teams or Zoom. We have staff send us your residents names and perhaps a favourite song to go along with it.
We can then set up our sessions to show your residents names and will personally read out and play their requests live on screen. We can also do birthday shout outs!
This program is beneficial for locked down facilities but also for residents in a regional setting who normally are unable to receive visits from music therapists.
Click the link below to see a session recorded for MACLEAY VALLEY HOUSE located in Regional NSW
Entertainment/Happy Hour: We provide the facility with musical performers spanning various genres, instruments and styles for concerts and shows. Whether it’s a piano man style classy show, A 60s theme request gig or ukulele singalong, we can make your residents day that extra special with some quality music that caters to a multicultural resident demographic. This activity can be run in a digital format as well as face to face.
Click the blue llink to see an example of the music provided to facilities:
Rhythm Therapy/Drum Therapy: Drums, Shakers, maracas and tambourines! This activity is a great tool for resident stress relief as well as resident interaction. We assemble in a room to play through musical songs while residents use instruments (drums, shakers, maracas) to keep time. This activity can be run in a Digital format as well as physically.
Click this link to find out more about this activity
Dementia Specific & High Care Rhythm Therapy:
This activity is a variation of the rhythm therapy above and involves a conductor on an instrument while residents use instruments or their hands to tap along to the beat. This activity has many cognitive benefits for dementia and also is accessible for nonverbal and immobile residents.
Click this link to find out more about this activity
Ukulele Lessons:
This activity involves group classes for residents wanting to learn an instrument. Suitable for residents wanting to learn new skills while working as a team.
Click this link to find out more about this activity:
Home Choirs:
This activity is fantastic for larger groups and allows residents to sing til’ their heart's content.
We let residents pick songs and print music to sing each week. Choirs can then perform for families/friends and is a great way to showcase the activities available within the facility.
Click this link to find out more about this activity:
Roaming One on One Sessions to Resident Rooms:
We can provide roaming ukulele players to visit your residents who are unable to attend group activities due to medical, social anxiety or other reasons . This program can be offered as a small extension to an existing booked group session upon visiting.
Click this link to find out more about this activity:
Personalised Resident Playlisting on Spotify/Audible:
It is important to cater to all resident tastes and preferences equally. This program involves using spotify for music or Audible for Ebooks to create personalised resident playlists that allow access to the right content when needed.
Imagine a resident's favourite books are readily available to play in audio form for them when they no longer can see the pages clearly. Imagine a resident in end of life care able to listen to their favourite music peacefully without staff having to spend valuable time finding the right playlist.
We get staff to compile forms provided by us for residents to fill out, asking about their favourite songs and books. We then set up the accounts for each facility and make sure every resident has a tailored personalized playlist ready for them to use. These playlists can be used on tablet devices at the facility, on smart TVS in resident rooms or for group activities such as exercise or dance classes.
SETTING UP A SESSION FOR YOUR FACILITIES:
It’s easy! Just contact Andrew@singusasongmusic.com and we can discuss which programs suit your facilities budgets and conditions. All programs can be tailored to suit the individual needs of your company and also be changed to alternate activities when required.
FEES:
please email andrew@singusasongmusic.com for a comprehensive list of pricing structures on casual or 12 month contract bookings.
Contracts:
We encourage facilities to sign up with us for a 12 month contract and benefit from the discounted session prices as well as flexibility for swapping between different activities.
Your activities program can be diverse and if you would like a rotation of performers/therapists for happy hours, we can provide this as well under the contract. A 12 month contract will be sent to facilities to sign and return prior to starting the discounted sessions.
We do not offer discounts for shorter contracts. If your company however would like to allocate and pay a portion of the contract up front, we offer this option as well.
Summary:
We look forward to working with your facility moving into 2022. The world has presented us with challenges as to how we can continue to provide activities and we hope this C.H.O.I.C.E program helps lifestyle/RAO staff, management and providers meet their resident needs into the future.
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