Need FUN & CREATIVE inservice ideas!

[jaxnRN]

i would love some input for inservice ideas. the audience intended for lpn's and cna's. topics could include safety, medication errors, pain management, communication..etc. obviously i and wide open to any suggestions.

it seems that our ltc facility lacks the creativity to make inservices educational but also interesting.

i've done a search on this site but have found nothing specific.

i am very interested in providing some much needed updates for our staff. thank you for any help.

[country mom]

I've used games before- Jeopardy is a fun one because it allows you to cover several categories. Bingo is another one- give everyone a bingo card with specific terms on it from your lecture and when they hear you mention that term in your lecture, they mark off that spot. When they get "bingo" you can give away small prizes.

[CoffeeRTC, BSN, RN]

How about some role play? Think about some situations that you may have seen or that the surveyors have tagged you on and go from there. Act out what happened and then say "stop" ask the audience what they see wrong and then you can explain the rationals etc.

We always do a "put yourself in the residents place/ point of view" Tell staff to bring a change of cloths for that day. We include...having someone sit in a wheel chair on a wet pad for a period of time, blurry glasses, wearing ear plugs etc.....

[barefootlady, ADN, RN]

Something like Gossip for medication errors.

[nursej22, MSN, RN]

Try to incorporate visual and tactile methods as well as audio for presenting. You can find great videos on YouTube--a little humor is great for engaging your audience. I personally need hands on, so I like things like role playing, question and answer or playing with a new piece of equipment. Do you have any musical background? i have seen presenters make up new lyrics to old standards, or have the group make up a rap.

For hand-washing, they have that stuff that shows up under a black light to show you how clean you got.

Sharing personal experiences, if people are willing, can have a great impact.

Think back to a class or inservice that you enjoyed or had a lasting impact? What was memorable?

I have a personal bias against power point presentations. As soon as one of those start, I am sound asleep!

[vampiregirl, BSN, RN]

We always do a "put yourself in the residents place/ point of view" Tell staff to bring a change of cloths for that day. We include...having someone sit in a wheel chair on a wet pad for a period of time, blurry glasses, wearing ear plugs etc.....

I've been to an inservice where this was done - it's a great learning experience! We also had to wear large gardening gloves and get the lid off a childproof pill bottle and take a certain color m&m out of the pill bottle. We had goggles smeared with vaseline for the blurry glasses. Another task was to get "dressed" - put clothes on (over our clothes) with snaps, buttons, zippers etc and tie shoes.

[vampiregirl, BSN, RN]

Another fun inservice I've attended was to have someone tell someone else how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The person making the sandwich had to LITERALLY do what ever the other people instructed. For example, if the person wasn't instructed to take off the lid, they don't. It's really commical, but reinforces the importance of accurate communication.

[WineCountryRN]

gosh I hate to say it but food really seem to do the job in getting the interest of the staff I work with...but how to keep the cost down? I plan to do roving inserving offering tea (high afternoon tea) and serve cookies (store bought). I also love popcorn and that can be made very inexpensively too. I found some really inexpensive tea cups at the thrift store and had a lace table cloth for my cart. Topics: (tough for LTC as it has been years for me..med safety~ no interruptions during med passes, inservice on fall risk factors, review new meds being used in geriatrics, professionalism at work. COuld you offer a raffle? Ask a local salon to donate a makeover or hair cut...most CNAs I work with do not get paid well and they would love to be taken care of for a change. Best of luck to you.

[flashpoint]

I did one on care plans and documentation...

I gathered all of the ingredients for peanut blossom cookies and put them out on a table in the private dining room. I divided the group into ten small groups (ten ingredietns in the recipe) and one group at a time had to go into the dining room (with the DON present) and add something to the bowl to make the cookies. They weren't told what kind of cookies we were making (actually they weren't even told we were making cookies) and they weren't allowed to look into the bowl to see what was already there. When the whole mess was mixed up, the cook baked it for us and we ended up with muffin consistency cookie like blobs that tasted like a peanut butter quiche...yuck!

We emphasized the importance of having a care plan (recipe) that everyone can see and understand and then documenting the care that was given. We provided the cookies as they were actually supposed to be and talked about how much better the group's cookies could have been if they had been provided with a recipe (care plan) or if they had been allowed to look into the bowl to see what was already there (documentation) and the logic that the cookies might have turned out perfect if we had given them both the recipe and the chance to see what had already been done.