About the Jazzles Academy. It's a beautiful idea that benefits everyone deeply!

Now a visionary solution for residents and staff working in aged care and retirement facilities.

The issue is school holidays. It is a challenging time for any parent, but particularly so for the staff of care homes, most of whom are low-paid and unable to afford casual holiday care for their children.

With the launch of Jazzles Academy, there's now a simple solution that benefits everyone involved, and perhaps most of all, the residents themselves.

Win 1. Staff don't have to worry about what their children are up to! They know exactly where they are, whose looking after them and they can see for themselves, that their children are having a great time thematically learning!

Win 2. Management don't have to worry about finding, good, reliable and caring temporary staff. Not only will staff turnover be less, but the facility will become a preferred employer - meaning they get to pick the best!

Win 3. The children will experience themed visual, auditory and kinesthetic activities that will creatively engage and develop their general knowledge and specifically their language and reading skills. Spanning craft, drama, dance, song, one of the biggest treats of all is hearing seniors share their stories of times long gone and residents who in their day made great contributions to their communities.

Win 4. Residents experience a life change! Generations interacting with each other. Of great relief, they will be talking to children who will treat them with great respect without ever resorting to negative elderspeak terms like 'sweetie' or 'dear'.

While following a learning structure, residents will be able to happily 'hopscotch' across stories and experiences spanning decades that have changed the world they were born in. Resuscitating skills and knowledge to benefit children. Becoming honorary grandparents to children who may have none. But the greatest benefit of all is to their health and well-being because the Jazzles Academy will bring back pride and dignity together with music, laughter, song, dance, drama, social interaction and story telling that in turn will significantly boost physical and mental health.

BACKGROUND

Retirement home healthcare and hospitality staff cover the range of socio-economics. Most are low-paid. While their children keep up with their middle-class friends cognitively during school, disadvantaged children fall far behind in school holidays.

When schools break, many carers in retirement homes take leave, unable to afford casual daycare. This negatively affects the quality of care and morale of residents while adding to the costs and administrative strains of running the facilities.

Now I am solving all these issues with a 'win-win' solution that will reduce staff turnover, boost resident moral and provide quality learning for many disadvantaged children, particularly those with migrant parents.

In 2010, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) found that migrant caregivers form 20% to 35% of the workforce, a figure on the increase as low wages deter native-born workers. Migrant workers are held in high regard - considered to be hard-working and compassionate employees who are reliable and responsible caregivers. However, language and communication skills can be challenging.

Jazzles Academy - It's Win! Win! Win!

My Jazzles ELA program is a song-powered integrated arts program that rapidly develops literacy, language and vital non-cognitive skills (including self-confidence) for a wide range ages and socio-economic backgrounds.

For this school holiday solution, I have tailored Jazzles ELA to work as a high quality 'edutainment' program for the children of caregivers aged from 4 upwards.

The program enables residents to apply their knowledge and skills in themed ways.

In any care community, there are retired teachers, pianists, actors, dancers, and grandparents with every range of skill you can think of - including, of course, story-telling about times before supermarkets, TVs and iPads. Pre-Simpsons time! About craft skills like pressing leaves, decorating cakes and making carts, crystal sets and fishing rods! And sharing their 'pearls-of-wisdom'!

Now, through the joy of music, karaoke (JazzleOke), dance, drama, craft, cooking - in fact any and all types of activities - retirees can use their vast pools of knowledge, expertise and talents, to develop children's literacy, general knowledge, social skills and so much more!

It's such a beautiful, lovely, wonderful thing to do. And it will bring so much benefit to so many!!

Some of the More Serious Benefits for Residents.

Researching a few aged care-facilities with their 'home-grown' program, I've found some extraordinary benefits including:

• 1. Significant boost in resident morale and interaction.
• 2. Previously self-isolated residents opting to come out of their rooms and join in.
• 3. Significant increases in happiness and laughter.
• 4. A more collegial environment.
• 5. Greater feeling of self-worth and 'well-being'
• 6. Greater alertness and improvement in memory.
• 7. Reduction in stress.
• 8. Reductions in speaking (and listening) disorders.
• 9. Improved lung functions.
• 10. Anticipation of what the next day brings!

 

With Jazzles Academy, add two more real benefits:

• Singing. Everyday starts with a Jazzles animated song for choral singing. Research consistently shows participating in choral singing helps seniors stay mentally and physically healthy.
• Laughter. From the funny animations to the learning extensions, the Jazzles program creates laughter. Regularly experiencing laughter improves interpersonal responsiveness, alertness, and memory.
• Collectively, singing and laughter improves respiration, increases blood circulation, reduces stress and increases the immune system defenses.

What Jazzles Brings to the Party!

It's all done for you! Ready to go.

Resource Base: Jazzles comes with a multitude of integrated multimedia resources - all tailored to create all the essential skills of literacy. Everything starts with a song - but the songs all have extensions themes that can utilize the interests and skills of the residents.

For example: from a song about fish (Fat Fish), our honorary grandparents can talk about great fishing experiences, paint fish, dramatize catching fish or, one of the best, create and fishy stories! You can go on excursions to an aquarium; look at a fish market, the list goes on.

When the residents are having a nap, children can create cards or, if computers are available, use the interactive language games.

Learning Guides: Retired teachers will see immediately that Jazzles ELA has brought up to date the teaching strategies and skills lost in to our current teachers.

Extensive guides provide hundreds of themed ideas - all there to generate oral language, expression, word knowledge, phonics and phonemic awareness skills plus left-to-right tracking without rote and nearly always intuitively.

The guides also have ideas to stimulate themed creativity, conversation and inquiry. Where as in school, you might search Google, with the Jazzles Academy children can 'google' residents' memories building awe and respect for the elders in our society.