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Making Tired Eyes Smile® offers your
residents needing memory support a meaningful,
adult activity. In a small group setting the residents begin where they are and
combine their receding skills to create original stories and poems.
Making Tired Eyes Smile® is crafted by a volunteer
for a volunteer. Everything a volunteer requires to implement this language
arts system is a click away. The tutorial leads the volunteer step by step in
fostering the group’s creativity. The themed lesson plans accompanied by
learning aids guide the volunteer. Add a flip chart and the volunteer is ready
to facilitate a circle of friends in a weekly half-hour of contribution and
community.
Why would your facility choose Making Tired Eyes Smile®,
a creative opening to expand the closing down world of seniors with
Alzheimer’s?
- gives
visibility in your outreach to positively impact the daily lives of your
residents
- states
your support for the families wrestling with
the complexity of the disease
- demonstrates to your staff a commitment to soften the difficult
care
- grants
voice to the possibilities still residing within loved ones with Alzheimer’s
- recycles
for years without additional investment
What is required of your facility to implement Making
Tired Eyes Smile®?
- Select a
volunteer to facilitate (not a care giver)
- Complete
the Making Tired Eyes Smile® tutorial (the volunteer)
- Choose the
lesson plan and prepare the learning aids (the volunteer)
- Print
lesson plan and aids on the facility’s printer (the volunteer)
- Provide a
flip chart, easel and markers
- Select the
six to ten residents who require memory support
- Create a
space conducive for the weekly half-hour sessions
What is provided?
- A detailed
self-study tutorial
- The lesson
plans (60)
- The
picture cues (60)
- The poems
for listening (120+)
- The
stories for listening (90)
- The
learning aids
- The
Sampler (A six-week look at the possibilities)
- Leave
behind activities: skill cards with quotes (60)
- Flexibility in choosing components to download
Who makes a good facilitator?
Look for someone who is generous with praise, encourages
achievement, is aware of nonverbal communication patterns, adjusts to the
unexpected, guards against criticism and irrelevant correction, does not have
to have it ‘right’, is animated, avoids arguments and speaks audibly, concisely
and simply. Is open to expanding the perception of Alzheimer’s. Visit A Network of Volunteers.
What are the results?
Making Tired Eyes Smile® sets out to expand
the boundaries placed on the disease, Alzheimer’s. The project wholly
acknowledges seniors who are slipping into invisibility. It meets each
sojourner where he/she is. There are no claims that this language arts system
rebuilds/maintains skills. The system is one avenue to deliver the intangibles
of respect, contribution, and creativity. It is a link to what these seniors
did before Alzheimer’s. It is an area in which they can still achieve and bask
in the accomplishment.
Who
should purchase Making Tired Eyes Smile®?
Assisted living facilities caring for residents with
dementia or Alzheimer’s are the market that best offers the environment for
implementing Making Tired Eyes Smile®. The facility would choose the
components that best fit the goals of the residents and the level of desired
financial investment. It is the facility’s computer and printer that would most
likely download the selected options in the program for the volunteer. The
facility may already have a volunteer who would make a great facilitator
serving at its site.
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