At BlueCross the old 'nursing homes' as we have known them have gone! Welcome to the new face of aged care.......

Getting the most out of life

The BlueCross lifestyle program enhances the quality of life for our residents. We believe activity and social engagement promotes health and wellbeing, our residents have fun and enjoy the day. 

That sounds easy but to do this we need to look at what it is the resident actually wants to do and then do our best to cater to the individual residents needs.  We talk to the residents about:

• What are their interests / hobbies?
• What are their abilities as in physical, cognitive, visual, hearing and sense of smell and taste?
• What is their background – spiritually, culturally and socioeconomically as in where did they grow up, did they work, did they go through a war or depression?
• Do they want to be sociable or prefer their own company?
• Do they need emotional support?
• What are their community involvements such as senior citizens, Probus; participate in a club, etc?
• What is their family network like?

The lifestyle programs across BlueCross have embraced the STARFish principals into the programs as well.  This asks all staff to:

• Be there
• Make their day
• Choose your attitude
• Have fun

To develop a program we provide a variety of activities from large groups, small groups and individual one to one time.

• Large groups – cater to residents who are interested in similar kinds of activity or social event, for example entertainers, speakers, presenters, exercise groups, bingo, craft and active games. Or it can be an event that brings people together across several residences to interact and socialise, like our Dancing With The Stars event celebrated in 2009 on International Day of the Older Person.
• Small groups – would cater to more of a speciality need for example – crosswords, quizzes, wood work, gardening, walking group, outings and more.
• Individual one to one’s – cater for the person who would prefer not to join group activities. Our leisure and lifestyle staff will cater to the individual need of the resident.
  
• We can also provide staff from our community care unit to take residents out to appointments or activities.