The COVID-19 Recovery and Rehabilitation project was kindly funded by The Rayne Foundation to help care homes share with each other what they are doing to help individuals living, dying, visiting and working in care homes for older people to move on from COVID-19. This story relates to the Co-create phase in Being appreciative. Being appreciative is a positive and motivating approach to developing practice and enhancing participation. It pays attention to the best in us, not the worst; to our strengths, not our weaknesses; to possibility thinking, not problem thinking. It invites us to Discover (What is working well?), Envision (How do we want things to be?), Co-create (How we can work together to make this happen?), Embed (What needs to be put in place to make it happen more of the time?)

If you have a story to share, please email us on mhlcharity@outlook.com.

As one care home shared …

One thing the lockdown has really taught us is how to co-create. This has been a profound discovery for us. We didn’t really co-produce before lockdown. We thought about it, and we might have asked one or two people who we saw regularly to do something with us. But from the activities we had to do, we have learned a lot, we have grown, and we have discovered qualities and abilities which hadn’t shone through previously. Co-creating is achievable, and not as daunting as we once thought. It feels like setting a pace. And this is much nicer than what we did previously. In the past, it was always about inviting families to our events and really it was often presented as ‘come along if you can make it’. Now we let families know that we’re planning to have an event and we ask them what they want it to be like. It was wonderful to do all these lovely things together, for our residents, and we all had a sense of ownership. It made us feel proud of the exciting and engaging things we could come up with.

 

Now, things look so much more different. If there was something we were proud about, or if there was ever a time we felt so proud, it’s now! We’ve discovered something very profound, that it’s possible and achievable to work jointly with our families and residents and aim for amazing things! Previously, it seemed like a daunting task to work with so many people to truly co-create, but now we think and do things differently. We know that not everyone would like to be so involved, but it creates the opportunity for anyone who would like to. The response indeed has been phenomenal, families have appreciated the involvement. Moving on from the restrictions, this has set the pace and has conveyed our openness and inclusivity to our families. One example of something we’ve done was running a shop, which our residents were in-charge of and families provided the stock for the shop! Another time, the war museum brought artefacts and left them with us in advance along with some paperwork. After this, someone came on to talk about the artefacts. But what is so beautiful was that storytelling sessions developed from that, everyone contributing to make it happen.

How have you worked with others to improve things for residents, relatives, and staff?