Elderly people living in aided facilities require the assistance of leisure and lifestyle assistants to help them through the day.
Since they cannot perform much physical work on their own, they depend on the services that they receive from leisure and lifestyle assistants.
These people help residents with physical or mental limitation in handling everyday work along with managing leisure time for them.
The main responsibility of a leisure and lifestyle assistant is to develop and implement a lifestyle curriculum which serves the specific needs of the residents.
They design activities aimed at handling both daily living and leisure and recreation. In addition, they determine the needs of each person in the facility and create plans to meet those needs as closely as possible.
As leisure and lifestyle assistant, you will need to be friendly and outgoing and possess the ability to handle irate residents – many residents of such facilities are prone to dementia and other age-related diseases which are not easy to handle if you are not emotionally stable yourself.
Specific duties of a leisure and lifestyle assistant actually depend on the environment she is working for.
While regular duties such as coordinating assistance to residents with daily chores such as bathing and dressing remain the same, duties related to the “leisure” part may differ. Here is a list of job duties for someone working at this position.
Leisure and Lifestyle Assistant Job Description
• Assess residents to determine their individual lifestyle and leisure needs.
• Seek advice from healthcare professionals to understand residents’ emotional and physical limitations.
• Develop and implement core leisure and lifestyle plans based on individual residents’ needs and preferences.
• Coordinate efforts of caregivers to ensure that proper care is being provided to residents in accordance to set plans.
• Organize leisure activities for residents such as swimming, picnics, sports, and camping.
• Oversee leisure activities and make certain that all proposed activities are safe for residents.
• Handle task delegation duties and guide staff members about handling individual duties.
• Manage documentation activities including records of the progress of lifestyle and leisure curriculum.
• Identify areas of improvement in present curriculum and plan and take/make suggestions for improvements.
• Monitor each staff member’s performance and provide suggestions for improving skills.
• Propose needed budget and stay within the confines of the budget when developing and implementing leisure and lifestyle policies and curriculum.
• Observe changes in the health status of residents and report them to healthcare professionals.
• Provide appropriate support orientation of new employees and new residents.
• Assist in the ongoing maintenance of the facility to make sure it is safe and friendly for residents.