Connecting Residents and Families for a Year – Mha and Famileo Mark First Anniversary

Care charity Methodist Homes (MHA) is celebrating a year of using the digital gazette Famileo which helps link residents with family and friends.

Famileo was piloted at MHA Coed Craig care home in north Wales by activity coordinator Amy Clearly, who started using it with her residents and their families and friends.

People upload status updates to an app, much as they would update their social media profiles, and include text and images. These are then converted into a weekly printed newsletter for residents to read and catch up with the latest family news. Each Famileo is personal to a resident.

Since it was introduced at MHA Coed Craig, Famileo has been adopted by MHA’s 88 care homes and some of its retirement living schemes, 5,112 families and friends are using it to stay connected and around 23,000 individual gazettes have been published. MHA is the largest care provider in the UK using Famileo.

Famileo is funded by MHA’s charitable work so there is no additional cost to residents. The company behind Famileo is based in France and the gazettes are used by care homes across Europe.

Amy said: “When I first found out about Famileo, I thought how fabulous it would be to help keep our residents connected with their family and friends.”

MHA’s dementia lead David Moore, who has been instrumental in rolling out Famileo to care homes, said:

“Because of the pandemic, visiting in our care homes has been limited at times. Famileo has been a fantastic way of helping keep the connections between residents and their family and friends when they haven’t been able to see each other.

“We also have a number of residents who have family living abroad so it helps them catch up on all the latest news and goings on that we take for granted when we meet face-to-face and the showing of photographs.

“All our homes using Famileo talk about the excitement and joy the distribution of the weekly newsletter brings to residents.”

Armel de Lesquen, Chief Executive of Famileo, said:

“It has been great to work in partnership with MHA to bring Famileo to their residents and families.

“Connecting people is what Famileo is all about, making sure everyone knows they are thought about and loved. Our gazettes make this happen.”