Victoria Huntriss, Wellbeing Lead at Springhill Care Home Accrington answers a series of questions on her new role..
Please describe your background/previous job role.
I have worked in a variety of settings, supporting and empowering vulnerable adults with varying support needs to help them to achieve their full potential.
This has involved lots of community link work, creative delivery of developmental workshops, linking in and working in partnership with medical professionals, mental health professionals and educational organisations to name a few.
I also spent a number of years working for a national charity advising people affected by memory problems and dementia and supporting them with to create and establish support links within their community.
My passion is for supporting and empowering people to improve their sense of wellbeing to ensure they get the most out of their life that they possibly can.
What do you like the most about the job?
My job satisfaction comes from those wonderful moments when you see people really connect with their own identity, with the staff and when you see individuals interacting and building meaningful relationships.
I also love working with the lifestyles team to encourage them to develop their own strengths and creativity to help build a diverse and interesting activity plan that meets the needs of the residents.
The team are very passionate about their jobs which is a pleasure to work with and it is exciting to see them develop within their roles. They are a real asset to Springhill.
What do you like the least about the job?
That I have lots of ideas and cannot develop them all at once! I am working on a new and innovative approach which requires careful planning and consideration and is very exciting to see changes happening already.
Springhill are Investors in People. So with career development, where do you see yourself in the future?
This is a very new role and currently I am developing this and have lots of passion and enthusiasm and the future for me is about making a difference to people’s lives and putting a lot of thought and consideration into this new and exciting role.
I feel there is a lot of fulfilment to be had in developing this role and that is my main focus currently.
There is a fantastic Learning and Development programme in place at Springhill and I look forward to accessing some of the many training opportunities available that will enhance my role and development.
How do you tailor your sessions to the residents’ needs?
We are currently developing Life Story Workshops to find out about residents’ lives and about their needs, likes, dislikes, hobbies and what they would like to get involved with here at Springhill.
This will be incorporated into our development of individual personalised plans. We will also be looking at evaluating current activities and encourage people to make suggestions and express any wishes for future development.
We will also be encouraging people to attend or take part in residents’ meetings and promise to listen what people want. I look forward to being creative and bring new ideas and activities to the home.
We have also begun our Winter Wishes where we are encouraging people to hang “wish stars” on the Wish Tree to look at aspirations and wishes for the year ahead.
I will also be on the lookout for new ideas and hopefully inspire the residents to try new things.
We are currently working in partnership with an organisation called Oomph (which stands for “Our Organisation Makes People Happy”). Their mission is to positively change the impact of ageing for older adults in care homes and the community.
They provide training to staff to deliver high quality, evidence based fun activities that incorporate physical, mental, creative emotional and spiritual needs.
This is a very inspiring collaboration and I am looking forward to seeing this develop further in the future.
Anything else you’d like to add…
I would really like to see Springhill not only as a place where people can lead a fulfilling life with fun, engagement and meaningful activities but also as a part of the community to further improve the quality and meaning to people’s lives.
This I feel will also help to acknowledge equality and diversity and improve inclusion. I am already working on building links within the community and will ensure to update you with news when I start actioning plans with this initiative.
