Family Council Recruitment
by Family Councils Ontario
With April comes, hopefully, spring. For many of us, spring is a time of refreshing, renewing, and, perhaps, restarting. This April, let’s turn our attention to a form of renewal: recruiting new members to the Family Council.
Family Council Recruitment is an ongoing process and it is important that you develop a recruitment plan early on. Due to the ebb-and-flow nature of Family Council membership, it is essential to continually recruit new members. Ongoing outreach is an important aspect of keeping a Family Council growing and thriving.
Here are a few key considerations regarding Family Council recruitment:
- It is important to share information about the Family Council as widely as possible. People won’t come to something they don’t know about!
- Make it fun! Enjoyable, productive meetings go a long way to getting and keeping members. A Family Council is more than just a place for processing complaints, so consider a project or an event.
- Taking on a project or event is a great way to get people involved. For example, something like a networking meeting or Family Council week activity is something where everyone can have a role. They are also great ways of accomplishing other goals, such as LTC Home staff appreciation or connecting with other Family Councils.
- Consider these questions:
- How can families be introduced to the idea of a Family Council?
- How can families and friends of residents be encouraged to participate?
- How will we ensure that staff and new families know we exist?
These are ways you can connect with families:
- A can be used to gather information on the level of interest in a Council, topics or activities of interest and good meeting times.
- Consent to contact forms can be given to families of new members, which gives the FC permission to contact that person. You can extend a personal invitation.
- Make sure the LTC Home Staff know about the Council and what it does. All staff can help pass on the word about your Council.
Next week, and throughout the rest of April, we’ll take a closer look at recruitment and connected Family Council topics so stay tuned!