Supportive measures trainers roll out education at Rosebridge
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 -- Natalie Miller
Becoming a supportive measures trainer has given an OMNI office manager a new perspective on resident behaviours.

Margaret Earl of Rosebridge Manor expects this will help her better interact with residents when they approach her in the office of the Jasper long-term care home.

“It has really broadened my knowledge of the residents,” says Earl.

“I never had participated in something like this before.” She, along with Rosebridge’s other managers as well as seven staff members, received in-house training to educate employees about OMNI’s dementia care approaches.

“It really gave me a chance to go above and beyond the call of office duty.”

Supportive measures specialists led the managers and employees through the first module of the corporate training manual which focuses on the brain. They also discussed the participants’ role in training others in the home and offered tips and strategies to make the education successful. From there, with the accompaniment of a supportive measures specialist during the first session, the trainers will go on to educate all of the home’s employees in the first module of supportive measures training.

“It’s a huge undertaking,” says Nelly Hobbs, administrator, about training all staff in the nursing home.

It’s OMNI’s goal to have all of the approximately 1,500 employees in 16 homes trained in the dementia care approaches by the year’s end.

“We asked for people who would be interested,” says Hobbs. “The managers all agreed we needed to take the lead. These people became our trainers.”

Hobbs says the training sessions are designed to be as least disruptive to the floor as possible. Having a variety of people trained allows for the flexibility of reaching staff working different shifts.

Hobbs says by the end of March all staff will have completed the first module of training. Rosebridge has divided the training into quarterly sessions, covering the remaining three modules by the end of the year.