When it comes to moving your loved ones into residential care it can be difficult for both you as the family and your loved one. So how can you help ease into the new routine, and how can you help them to settle in?

A Change For Family

Whether your loved one lives at home with you, or in their own home, it will always have an impact on the family when they move into residential care. And while there is always support within the home, the family rarely know where to turn when they need support with the transition.
Here at Charlotte House, we are always welcoming families to have a chat with our team to see how best we can help them to adapt to not having their loved ones at home anymore. This includes trying to help them keep traditions, such as if they were to always visit at the same time on a Wednesday every week for example. While it may not be the same as visiting in their own home, you have the option to visit residents in their own rooms, the communal areas, and in the nice weather, you can even visit in the garden.
Another way to help ease the transition, if you cant visit as often as you like, is to invest in a mobile phone for your loved ones. While not all will be willing to take on this new technology, many are more than capable of easy mobiles, such as the likes of a Doro. This enables you to call them when you like, and vice versa.

Moving Into Care

For that loved one who is moving into care, it will be one of the biggest changes that they go through within their life. Where they feel that they are having their freedom taken away from them. However, we want to ensure that the residents that join us at Charlotte House, do not feel like their independence has been taken away, but more that we are there to support them with their everyday needs and surround them with others in a similar situation.
Here at Charlotte House, we do all we can to ensure that any new resident settles in as best as they possibly can. This may mean that they need to spend a few days alone in their room, or have family members visits that last even longer to encourage them into the communal areas. We understand that everyone is different. This means that our team will spend the time getting to know your loved ones to see how best they can help them to adapt to life in residential care.
We encourage families to continue to contact their loved ones as much as they would have before the move. This helps them to maintain a sense of normality, and like they haven’t been abandoned into care. This is often helped by the previously mentioned mobile phone.

Here at Charlotte House, we like to make all our residents feel like part of the family. So however long it takes for your loved one to ease into their new home, we will be there supporting them every step of the way. If we feel like they need a spot of extra encouragement to get meeting other residents, we’ll be sure to get the family involved, so you can too feel more at ease with the transition.

For more information about residential care Bebbington, please get in contact with the Charlotte House team, or take a look at our Facebook where we post regularly about the activities that our residents have been taking part in.