Maplewood on track to completing supportive measures training
Tuesday December 4, 2007 -- Deron Hamel
With all but two staff members at Maplewood having fully completed supportive measures training, the Brighton long-term care home is on track to meeting OMNI’s end-of-year goal, says Chris Charlebois, supportive measures specialist and life enrichment co-ordinator.

For the first time in its history, OMNI Health Care made the decision to have every staff member in company’s 16 long-term care homes fully trained in supportive measures by Dec. 31.

Training began in early 2007 with staff members received education in four areas of supportive measures throughout the year — Alzheimer’s and difficult behaviours, the aging process, purpose-filled days and quality of life for residents.

One of the objectives of training every staff member in the OMNI family was to empower individuals. The more staff members who are knowledgeable of supportive measures, the better trained everyone is to meet the needs of residents.

“I think it opened a lot of eyes,” says Charlebois. “A lot of the staff had been doing supportive measures, it just never had a name put to it.”

The biggest challenge with getting everyone trained has been co-ordinating the time, says Charlebois. Since the home is short-staffed many days, Charlebois had to discover ways of getting the job done.

By making her in-services short and to the point, as well as tracking down staff members when their workload was lighter, Charlebois has been able to reach out to almost everyone to date.

All in all, Charlebois says training each staff member in the home has made it much easier for everyone to understand why agitation occurs in residents with Alzheimer’s disease and how to better accommodate these residents.

“I think it has created a lot more patience and a better understanding of what our residents with Alzheimer’s go through on a daily basis,” she says.

Charlebois, who has done supportive measures training in the past, says she found this round of training to be an eye-opener. In fact, she found the training to be so engaging, it has sparked an interest in further pursuing training and development.

“It created a new goal for myself,” she says.

In January, Charlebois will be continuing her human resources degree offered online from Sir Sandford Fleming College in Peterborough. Coupled with her enjoyment of conducting in-services, Charlebois is hoping to take her career to another level once she completes her degree.