How far are you willing to go to help seniors who need support?

Meet Amy, a staff of The Salvation Army Peacehaven since 2006, rendering 16 years of commendable service to date from her initial role as therapy assistant to that of a senior care associate. Willing to go over and beyond, she attended various courses over her long service, including dementia care courses in order to upgrade her skills and provide better care for seniors.

Part of her role involves patiently managing challenging behaviours of seniors, some of whom have dementia. When asked how she gets them to cooperate in innovative ways, she says cheerfully:

‘I speak to them indirectly in the presence of other trusted individuals and it helps if I see them like own my parents. The need a lot of encouragement to take a new step forward at their age. And picking the right timing to communicate is key.’

To engage seniors under her care, Amy innovates with various interactive activities such as craftwork, cooking, gardening and music movement, such as drumming on exercise balls with drummer sticks. Such activities allow seniors to be more interactive, allowing them to look forward to pockets of time that are spent more spent meaningfully.

One instance where Amy’s creativity is incorporated with meaningful engagement can be seen in the “Go Green” initiative, where fresh pieces of artwork are produced through recycled materials. Under her guidance, the seniors made aesthetically pleasing artwork that now decorate the seniors’ personal living spaces. Several pieces of artwork were even selected as gifts of appreciation to several guests of honour on various occasions and events, and some were showcased at the recent World Ageing Festival held in May 2022.

Amy derives great satisfaction from boosting the senior’s confidence through various performances while helping seniors to maintain their motor skills for as long as possible. During pre-covid days, you could sometimes chance upon seniors putting on performances of music pieces in public. Such creation of previous happy memories for the seniors are definitely what Amy excels in as well since you could still feel the seniors’ excitement from how they were still joyfully talking about it after the performance.

Amy is also recognised for going the extra mile and had once taken the initiative to help one of Peacehaven’s clients in hair grooming, something which is beyond her scope of work. The family members of that senior had expressed their thanks and appreciation to Amy for going beyond her duty.

Amy is not one to sit on her laurels and is constantly upgrading her skills to better care for seniors. Hence, she has attended many courses in the course of her long service including dementia care courses.

The Salvation Army would like to congratulate Amy for receiving the STAR award at the Singapore Health Quality Service Awards 2023. We are extremely proud of her and grateful to have her with us.