There's a range of disability-holiday provision. Does your choice have heart?
The main focus of this page is carers and disabled carees as guests within disability holiday provision. Other guests and their contribution to success are discussed. However, do not presume that holiday provision is restricted to disability-oriented hotels. In some cases, such holiday provision is part of residential provision so read "residents" in many cases of the use of "guests"
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Ideally, after a disability-oriented holiday within specialised provision, one wants to write:
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No two ways about it. The combination of guests looking for care, with staff looking to care, results in a caring provider with heart. And it's more than that. The guests contribute as much heart as the staff and a large part of that is picked up from the caring and loving atmosphere which is spread from wall to wall, floor to ceiling and even whistles down the corridors.
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The guests help each other. They call for help if another guest needs it. They natter while knitting needles clatter. They might mumble "It's tasty" into their lovely lunchtime apple crumble but never grumble at each other, or the staff, for that matter.
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You might excuse an academic for using an unusual word. It's comity and it means "friendly social atmosphere" -source. Ten out of ten for the provider with heart.
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"The definition of atmosphere is an overall feeling and/or effect of a place, specially if it is an environment of pleasure or interest." source That doesn't state anything about good or bad. However, it is contextual. We are discussing the caring and loving atmosphere which is spread from wall to wall, and so on. Ten out of ten for the provider with heart.
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I can hear the reader thinking "All this stuff about caring and atmosphere is OK, but, if he's included a heart in the discussion, when are we to hear about love?"
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There are too many forms of love to delve into here and the one I put forward has a social basis of shared awareness and a resulting identity. If you like, there are two main subgroups of the holiday care provision - the guests and the staff, each with their own shared awareness and identity.
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However, they are the combined population and it's this social unit which derives or produces the atmosphere within the holiday care provision.
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Continuing with the concept of love, the staff possibly give a professional love which is a kind of love for the client as she/he is - a set of enduring characteristics. We should understand the word love as a higher form of altruism and not in its usual romantic and possessive meaning. It is not paternalistic, not sentimental, and not superficially social or agreeable.
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The guests come with a set of expectations relating to being looked after. They react to the kind altruism of the staff. Most staff in some disability holiday situation have smiley eyes. Can't quite use "most" for the guests as some are quite ill. However, once the chat starts, they soon become brighter.
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And from that worthwhile situation and interaction, the guests interact with each other and it's well beyond the inevitable "How are you today? asked by us Brits without even looking at the person asked.
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Whether the interaction has been with other guests, or staff, guests almost can't help themselves avoid the desire for reciprocal response. From there, it's a never-ending positive interaction until the guests leave for home. That brings about a residual mental smile and feeling of contentment on replaying memory-scenes from time at the holiday care provision.
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And that takes us back almost to where we came in. " . . staff looking to care" is at No. 2. For them, the residual mental smile is reality written large on most faces with smiley eyes.
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Which takes us back almost to where we came in.
Does your choice have heart?
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