Avonlea Rest Home - Dementia Care NZ

Havening - August 2022.

Havening is sometimes known as ‘first aid for the emotions’ for its ability to very quickly soothe and down-regulate stress neuro-chemistry and promote calm and tranquility. 
Havening is a psycho-sensory therapy that helps people identify the root causes of their issues and rewire their response so that they can release issues like stress, trauma and anxiety.
Over the past 18 months I’ve completed Havening training including a three-day intensive training programme, passing 30 written client case studies, two client case study videos, ethics and a neuro-science exam.
The objective of this training is to explore how Havening techniques might help people living with dementia. Over the next few months we will be considering how simple Havening techniques could  help de-escalate situations our residents find distressing or confronting, and create a sense of safety and calm in our homes.
How it works
Havening is based on neuro-science and is all about training the brain to respond differently to particular issues. People’s brains can become stuck in a pattern of high alert around certain circumstances and situations. These situations will trigger extreme or disproportional responses.
Havening techniques can interrupt this pattern by creating healing delta waves. It is gentle, healing, effective and often rapid, and has no negative side effects.
In a session we use Havening Touch to create the change. This technique switches off the brain’s ‘alarm’ button associated with a particular stored trauma, preventing future unhelpful responses. Havening is simple, safe and highly effective, gently down-regulating anxiety and distress and creating a sense of safety … a sense of a safe ‘Haven’.
Donya Nee, Promotions and Public Relations Coordinator and Havening practitioner.

Strengthening our clinical team
We are delighted to have recently secured the services of two highly skilled and experienced clinicians to join our organisational team in key leadership roles.
Urmee Rahman and Arrah Bagtang have accepted positions as Regional Clinical Managers with Dementia Care NZ. Their role will be to mentor, guide and support the Clinical Managers of our rest homes, and through them the Registered Nursing and care teams. 
Based in the South and North Islands respectively, they will provide leadership through regular on-site visits, zoom sessions and telephone support. They in turn will be supported by our wider DCNZ team. 
In welcoming Urmee and Arrah to our family, we would like to take this opportunity to introduce them to you.
A dedicated professional with over 8 years of clinical and managerial experience in the health sector, Urmee’s expertise is in aged care nursing, with the past four years in clinical management roles.
Urmee’s approach is strongly people-focused, with a commitment to empowering and supporting our older population to continue to be in charge of living their lives in the way that makes them happy.
Urmee is at home working within a multi-disciplinary team setting to provide the highest quality of care at all times. She thrives on leading and developing successful teams, and implementing change in a dynamic and complex healthcare environment.
Her personal interests include reading, travelling, and exploring and getting to know different cultures and places.
Arrah comes to us with more than seven years experience as Clinical Manager for Aged Care facilities providing rest home, hospital and dementia levels of care, with proven ability to support both residents and staff. Her most recent role has been as Clinical Manager of a 60-bed rest home providing hospital and rest home level care. 
Arrah has expertise in Infection Control, Health and Safety, Quality Improvement, facilitating staff education, interRAI assessments and all aspects of clinical team leadership. Her focus is on creating and maintaining warm, caring and effective relationships with residents, their families and the staff team to provide truly excellent holistic care.
Above all, Arrah’s passion for older persons’ care, and especially dementia, shine through the work she has chosen to do.
This dual appointment broadens and strengthens the clinical expertise of our team, making an additional level of knowledge, skills and experience readily accessible to staff, residents and families. The added benefits in terms of care will be significant, with a true passion for dementia and aged care characterising each member of our outstanding clinical team.

March 21 2020

IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING COVID-19 AND VISITATION.

We have decided to temporarily close our home over the weekend to visitors as we work towards implementing the latest advice from the Ministry of Health as of 21st March 2020. We are reviewing our processes to ensure they meet the new recommendations from the Ministry. We will advise you of the new process for visiting our home on Monday, 23rd March 2020.

We acknowledge the importance of visits for our residents and their loved ones. Closing our doors is not a step we take lightly. However, preventing the spread of COVID-19 has to take priority.

Andrew Sheard
Director

March 2018:

Easter is a special celebration for us here in our home. We love to enjoy loving time together and share memories evoked by the scent of fresh hot cross buns and the feeling of anticipation as we unwrap the first Easter egg.

We wish you all a safe and happy Easter with those you love.

As always, we welcome your visits and remind you that our visiting times are the same throughout the holidays.

 March 2018:

January 2018:

Christmas is a time when treasured family and social traditions are renewed and enjoyed by us all. Christmas card writing is an time-honoured tradition that seems to be dying out as email communication becomes more popular. At Avonlea we have loved helping each other to write Christmas cards to family and friends. There’s nothing quite as special as receiving a card in the handwriting of a person you love.

December 2017:

To our dear friends
It's the end of 2017, a time of reflection on the past year. As always, there have been many moments of joy, laughter, peace and wonder: what we call ‘magic moments’. We are full of gratitude and would like to say thank you to you all. Thank you for encouraging us by being part of this online community. Thank you to the people who visit our homes - it is always lovely to see you. Most of all a very big thank you to those of you who share your family membe...r or friend with us. It is a huge privilege to take care of the people who live here with us in their home. They are a wonderful inspiration to us and we love them dearly.
We would also like to say an enormous thank you to each and every member of our staff team. We appreciate you and value you so much. Thank you for everything you do.
We are grateful for the highs and lows, the challenges and opportunities this past year has brought. Thank you for being part of it.

October 2017:

Recently at Avonlea we had a “Pink Day”. This was not only to acknowledge breast cancer awareness but also just to have some extra fun together. Residents and staff dressed in pink and purple and we decorated the home with pink balloons, used pink serviettes and enjoyed pink Lamingtons. Our Diversional Therapist Jo enjoyed making some amazing enormous pink flowers with residents to decorate our spring-themed rooms. Even nature joined in with a stunning display of pink blossom on our flowering cherry tree!

October 2017:

At Avonlea we have a lovely new raised planter in the garden. During winter we planted Bokchoy and through the cold winter months we enjoyed watching it grow and flourish. Recently it was ready to pick and with much anticipation we made stir fry to share. Things always taste better out of your own garden made together with love!

August 2017:

All of us were absolutely delighted with a visit from Rosie a pet lamb for the day. Hugs and shared stories of youth followed. Many residents enjoyed helping with the 2 hourly bottle feeding! Rosie was wearing a nappy which brought much laughter from everyone

August 2017:

Recently we got together on a winters afternoon to make pine cone bird feeders. This was a lovely opportunity to chat and reminisce about what our gardens were like at home and our favorite types of birds. There’s nothing lovelier to welcome in Spring than birdsong in our garden.

 Spring at Avonlea - October 2016

Welcome to Spring at Avonlea. Its so nice to see all the blossom trees in flower and enjoying the spring flowers even though the weather has been unpredictable at times. We are busy enjoying our spring activities and recently we took several van loads out to Hadstock’s farm to pick daffodils. Residents had a lot of fun and brought back many buckets of daffodils to share with everyone else, all the units looked colourful and smelt wonderful for several days.

Our Activities team has been busy with several ongoing projects. In Mahal we have enjoyed making a little area with a wheelbarrow garden, bridge and gnomes for residents to enjoy looking at.

We have a “Mens Club” up and running with activities aimed at things our men like to do, example are painting, gardening, separate van outings, walking club and arts and crafts more aimed at men, we always welcome your suggestions.

We have continued to expand our exercise programme with the help of our physio therapist and encourage residents to engage in “moving” even if sitting in a chair and have fun at the same time. Please feel free to join in if you are visiting at the time.

In the last couple of weeks we have worked along residents, families and staff to turn one of our rooms in Ofa into a ‘Memory Room”.  This special room has items from the 50s and 60s for all of us to enjoy and reminisce. We thank everyone who has denoted items to help bring this room to life. We encourage all families from any unit to take your loved on to the room and enjoy a cuppa and share memories together, just ask staff if you require any help.

Charisma and Sue.

24th March 2013

Warmest greetings!

Hospital dementia care home opening  date for  Avonlea

We are pleased to announce that our new 11 bed specialised dementia hospital home at Avonlea, will be open and ready for admissions during the week beginning March 31st.
This new dementia hospital will meet the needs of residents whose dementia progresses to the stage where they are reassessed as needing a higher, more specialised level of care
Care is delivered in a small, warm and homely atmosphere in keeping with our small homes concept. There is an open plan kitchen for activities and a sense of homeliness.  The home opens out onto a pleasant and inviting courtyard. There are garden paths to walk and beautiful trees to sit under.
Our organization has considerable existing expertise in hospital dementia care, which we provide at six of our eight facilities country-wide. We have an established reputation for experience and excellence in this level of care.
We are proud and excited that at Avonlea can now offer a complete continuum of dementia care, to the community and that our residents will no longer need to move on to other facilities as their care needs change.
We welcome your enquiry and are more than happy to meet with those of you interested in viewing our home.
For further information, enquiries or bookings, please call Donya Nee on 0272776882 or Kirsty Hart on 03 338 0202 x 1.
Warmest regards
                                                    
Kirsty Hart   

Operations Manager

Charisma Roblete

Clinical manager

Hospital dementia care to be offered at Avonlea

Following the successful introduction of hospital care in April last year, we are excited to announce that we will soon add Dementia Hospital care to the services we provide at Avonlea. This will be provided in Aroha.

This new dementia hospital will meet the needs of residents whose dementia progresses to the stage where they are reassessed as needing a higher, more specialised level of care. Now these residents will be able to remain in Avonlea, in surroundings which are familiar and cared for by people who know them well and understand them. This brings much comfort to their families also.

Our organization has considerable existing expertise in hospital dementia care, which we provide at six of our eight facilities country-wide. We have an established reputation for experience and excellence in this level of care.

A minor audit focusing on the MOH requirements for dementia hospital care will take place on 4^th February.

Aroha will close on 7^th February for alterations. We hope that the building work will be completed within six weeks, and that our new dementia hospital home will fill rapidly thereafter. We will do our very best to keep disruption to a minimum during this time.

We are proud and excited that at Avonlea we will soon offer a complete continuum of dementia care, and that our residents will no longer need to move on to other facilities as their care needs change.

Please do not hesitate to come and see either one of us if you have any concerns relating to this change, or any questions.

Warmest regards

Kirsty Hart - Operation Manager

Charisma Roblete - Clinical Manager