This spring I volunteered at a local nursing home. I also happen to work there and thought it would be a great idea to edit their company’s brochure. The company is Kingsville Nursing and Rehabilitation Center and it is a skilled nursing facility. It is a skilled nursing facility and offers long as well as short term care. Short term care involves more of the rehab services. The rehab services are speech, occupational, and physical therapy. Their main goal is to meet the patient’s goal and get them home safely. The therapy department assists with self-sufficiency through their services of speech, occupational, and physical therapy. Discharge planning is also in affect to help them get back into the community. They are also there to offer and guide the patients into transitioning into long term care if needed. The facility offers 24 hours, seven days a week nursing care, dietary, housekeeping, social services, and activities services. I did my volunteer hours with Brenda Hernandez who does internal admissions and Amy Cruz who is the activity director.
My overall goal was to finish the brochure and the hours I needed to finish for the class. I was on time with everything and it was easier than I expected. I learned a lot during my time off the clock and had time to focus on other things than just my job alone. I learned that communication is key and how you market a company all relies on if you present the company right and easy to understand. I also learned where different files go and what the paperwork actually meant and why it was so important. This service learning was not just educational for me but as well as the people who need or want to come into the facility. I feel like on the brochure I made for Kingsville Nursing and Rehabilitation made it easier and faster to comprehend versus the brochure that through all the facilities together. It showed the difference of what all the facilities do and what Kingsville Nursing and Rehabilitation does for their patients. Also it educates anyone who wants to volunteer and shows them what the nursing home is about.
My overall experience was good. I work at Kingsville Nursing and Rehabilitation so I went on my days off to do the service learning hours. I might be a little basis when I say I would recommend anyone who needs volunteer hours to go and volunteer there. I love the people and the people I worked with. I think it is good to go and help out because they need more hands and it helps us out because we need hours. Volunteering at the nursing home is a win-win situation and is easy to do. I really enjoyed my time there while off the clock and would do it again if I had to. I got to learn more about the nursing home and what different departments do. As a learning experience my time there was valuable and well given.
As for future learning, I would like to work on something much bigger than a brochure. I would like to go and see how things are done as for the marketing aspect of it. I want to see what people see and can comprehend because maybe that will get us more patients. Also, I would like more time working with medical records because I learned a lot during my time filing. For activities, I would like to have more time playing bingo and interacting with the residents. I really enjoyed being in the generation’s unit for people with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. I would like next time to spend most of my time in the generation’s unit. The generation’s unit is not what you expect at first but then you adapt and learn how to deal with people who have dementia or Alzheimer’s.