Activities at Austen House Care Home
Here at Austen House, we like to get to know those we support, and from the day of moving in, our activities team will spend time on an individual basis learning about interests, likes and dislikes, life history and favourite hobbies.
We provide a wide range of activities, from one-to-one time, manicures and board games, through to live entertainment, prize bingo and our ever-popular cheese & wine events. Our activities team will also tailor individual activities to ensure residents can have as much or as little involvement as they choose.
In the summer months, greater focus is given to outdoor activities, such as barbecues and garden parties. In conjunction with our Chef, themed events are planned throughout the year, bringing activities and food together.
In their pink polo shirts, our activities team are easily identifiable and embrace ideas and suggestions from residents and their relatives to ensure that the activities provided keep those we support engaged, stimulated and entertained.
Iuliana Buican
Hi my name is Iuliana, I was a history teacher for 12 years before I joined Barchester in 2017. I am passionate about my job and love working with people. I enjoy planning and delivering meaningful activities which make a difference to our residents lives.
Read our brochure 'Life-enriching activities' for more information about life in our care homes.
Read our brochure
Activities and Events Partnerships
As part of our bespoke life-enrichment programmes, we host a number of live virtual events in the home on a regular basis through a number of partnerships with places of interest and world class performance companies
Life at Austen House Care Home
Peter's radio debut!
Our entry into the Fortnum & Mason Platinum Jubilee Pudding competition caught the interest of BBC Radio Berkshire! Phil Kennedy from the afternoon show spoke to our lovely resident Peter this afternoon and you can hear him talk about the ideas we came up with, his input (with the piping bag!) and best of all naming our entry 'Austentatious'
A number of Barchester Healthcare homes entered but we are hoping our radio coverage will push up through to the next round of the competition
Thank you community!
Residents loved receiving a colourful banner and cards for Valentines from the children at Thrive Early Years and Intergenerational Childcare and so they made thank you cards for the children, each one made unique and with care. We are looking forward to Easter when we will have cards for children to colour in and give to a loved one - more news on how to collect free from Austen House coming soon!
Valentines Day at Austen House!
Today residents at Austen House celebrated LOVE with many things, a themed lunch in the decorated dining room thanks to the children Thrive Early Years and Intergenerational Childcare, and fresh red roses for our ladies, delicious wine and bubbles followed by afternoon entertainment which had residents up dancing, foot tapping and clapping along.
Valentines inspired cookery demonstration
We had a lovely time joining Chef Alex Connell from Vegetarian for Life today for a Valentine’s-inspired virtual cookery demonstration.
Chef Alex created some delicious Valentine’s Day-inspired vegetarian desserts, which our residents had the opportunity to try too. The hazelnut truffles which were a huge hit accompanied by refreshments, we all voted the afternoon an absolute triumph!
We created our own Platinum Jubilee Pudding!
We have been cooking up a storm to enter the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Pudding Competition.
The competition is being run by Fortnum & Mason to create a pudding that the whole nation can bake for themselves and that will be served not only at Jubilee parties up and down the country, but to the Queen herself to celebrate her 70 years on the throne.
We put our heads together to come up with ideas, with recipe books to inspire something truly Royal!
Burns Day celebrations
Burns Day was special here at Austen House for many reasons, residents enjoyed making art themed posters for Burns night, we had a special lunch menu of traditional Haggis, Neeps & Tatties followed by a 'wee dram' and of course a poem or two
