Hello all! I've missed my weekly updates these past couple weeks. Right now we have so much to do, and so little time to write about doing it, haha! I wanted to take this blog post to share some of our recent groups and interventions, and suggest some adaptations. I hope these ideas help!
1. When planning a group on your own, flow is important. Themes are an easy way to keep your group going; you can pick a topic, or coordinate your theme to match the season/holiday. Holidays and seasons are especially great, because they give you an overarching idea to plan your groups around, and can increase reality orientation at the same time. Double whammy!
2. Have an idea of your overall structure beforehand. For example, when we lead groups for the community living center, we some basic features we always try to hit: 10 minutes of physical activity to warm everyone up and get them moving and talking, 20-30 minutes of a cognitive activity, and then an exercise activity. Breaking up your time into chunks will help you plan your activities more strategically.
3. Plan AHEAD OF TIME how you will compensate for environmental factors, or adapt your activities to meet the needs of individual group members. No, you can't plan for everything, but it's good to have strategies in place beforehand for some scenarios. For example: If you plan a group for 8 people, and 15 show up, will you be prepared? Or, if you plan for 12 people and only have 3 attend? If a group member is non-ambulatory/non-verbal/non-hearing, will they be able to participate? What if a group member cannot read or count? These are all questions we have to plan for during our weekly groups here.
So, now I have a few specific interventions we use that hopefully you can take and adapt for your own groups!
Warm-Ups/Icebreakers: For warm-up activities, don't be afraid to turn on background music, and actively engage with clients without worrying about your guitar. Blow up balloons and see how long you can keep them in the air, (our 92-year-old patients LOVE this), do some stretches, bust out some egg shakers and have a jam session, kick a ball around the circle, do some dancing, or pass an instrument around the circle, giving everyone a chance to solo.
Cognitive interventions: Musical "Name that Tune" and Music Bingo are always good options. Divide up into teams, give each team a word like "Love", "World", etc., and see how many song titles they can list that have that word in them. I just did a song-writing activity where I gave the group a letter, and they listed all the places they could think of that started with that letter; we then wrote our own verses to Johnny Cash's "I've Been Everywhere". Play Hangman with song titles, and sing the song once someone guesses it. (note: if you need a PC version of Hangman, draw your man ahead of time, and erase a piece for each incorrect guess. The object is to guess before all the parts are gone. We renamed it "the disappearing man"). Give group members instruments, and assign them each a word; they will then play their instrument when you sing that word. (e.g. tambourines play when you hear the word "star).
Physical interventions: Use music to cue movements while doing chair exercises. Get some large dice, and label one with movements and the other with numbers; group members take turns rolling, and do the movement they roll, the number of times that they rolled. One of my favorite activities ever was when we got paddle drums and foam balls, and hit balls around the circle to each other; the drums make an awesome sound, and everyone loved it. If your clients are ambulatory, try some dancing or aerobic activity. (just be careful which populations you are working with). For a more relaxing session, use live music to cue deep breathing and progressive muscle relaxation.
