Family Council Meeting

RK Mac Donald Nursing Home

Family Council Committee Meeting

Wednesday Sept 13, 2016: 3:30 pm

 Present:

Jim Mulcahy (Chair), Cathy L Mac Donald, Cathy D. Mac Donald, Barb Mac Kinnon, Mary Mac Donald & Marian Mac lellan.

Regrets:

Dorothy Ludlow, Jim Peters & Mary Lynn Mac Intyre

1. The Chair introduced the new members and passed out the Terms of Reference to new members. Marian Mac Lellan volunteered to record the minutes.
2. Michelle Thompson CEO read an update from her report re activities that are on going at the RK, see attached report from Michelle Thompson.
3. Questions were raised re the status of the number of volunteers at the RK and the role that they play within the organization.
4. Clarification was also received regarding the “feedback process”. The ability to provide feedback electronically is now available through the RK website.  The “Feedback process” can be found on the website under “contact”.
5. Next meeting date Wednesday October 12^th, 3:30, an agenda will follow prior to the meeting.

Respectively Submitted by

Marian MacLellan

September 2016 CEO Update to Family Council

1. Thank you for Terms of Reference. I want to thank and acknowledge the Council members for the thoughtfulness that went into them. I have shared them with Senior Leaders and the Board of Directors as well.
2. The Strategic Plan is on the website as well as the priorities for 2016. “Plan on a Page”
3. There is a new CCA course starting at the R.K. MacDonald on September 12, 2016. We have partnered with Futureworx as the course provider..
4. Accreditation Update: We have registered with Accreditation Canada. As we are currently not an accredited facility there is a 2 year process called the “Accreditation Primer” that is essential preparation phase before moving into full accreditation phase. We will be in touch with the Family Council when we receive more detailed information about the process and how we can partner to meet the Standards. In particular doing a survey with Resdeints and families would be a great opportunity to partner together.
5. Summertime: we continue to be challenged with staffing, particularly in the nursing department. We recruited heavily in the Spring and despite a significant number of new employees hired across all disciplines, we had times where shifts weren’t filled. There are a number of staff currently off on leave and we are supporting their return to work to the best of our ability. In addition we are undertaking the following actions:
   1. We are looking into workplace wellness programs through provincial health care associations to understand if there is potential to roll out a program here.
   2. We are working with local rehab specialist to learn more about mental health supports and rehab programs for people experiencing significant stress and/or mental distress and mental illness.
   3. We have been encouraging all staff enrolled in benefits to utilize the benefits for self care and preventative health programs
   4. We are encouraging folks to utilize the Employee and Family Assistance Programs. They are anonymous and free of charge and the organization only receives aggregate numbers regarding uptake. No details are shared
   5. We are doing a workplace wellness survey asking staff how we can best support their wellness as an organization

We want to encourage staff to care for themselves and we want to support their wellbeing as an organization.

6. We will be undertaking staff education over the course of about 10 months focused on care of residents with dementia. We will be incorporating the Positive Physical Approach from Teepa Snow. All staff in the building will be going through training sessions so it will take a significant amount of time to have staff attend. We don’t want to rush the process however and we want to ensure that the training days are paced well and spaced well in order to translate learning to practice. The training days will begin in October

Again, if there is anything you need from me, or the Senior Leadership Team, please do not hesitate to ask. Thank you for your ongoing support and commitment to the R.K. MacDonald and the residents who live here.

Michelle Thompson