Activities at Drummond Grange Care Home
We understand that the people we support have passions and interests that could be difficult to pursue after moving into a care home – but that doesn’t mean we don’t encourage them to try! Some hobbies can define a person, so our Activities Coordinators are dedicated to ensuring that everyone we support is able to do what makes them happy to the best of their abilities. Social events are organised with individual tastes in mind and with the idea that residents have the opportunity to try new and exciting things.
Katie Nicolson
Katie Nicolson is our Head of activities here at Drummond since August 2023 beforehand she worked as an activity assistant in the home for two years. Before coming to Drummond Katie has worked in many care roles over the years and studied Psychology and Sociology at Queen Margaret’s University and was awarded a Degree of Bachelor of science in Psychology and Sociology at the start of 2022. Katie loves being part of the Activity department here at Drummond Grange and bringing new and exciting opportunities and experiences to the residents. When she’s not at work Katie is a local Girl Guide leader and youth leader for her churches youth group.
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 Drummond Grange Care Home
Residents delight with pop-up shop
Staff at Drummond Grange have brought a little bit of delight to their residents who like to shop. As they can't take the residents out to the shops they have improvised and brought the shops to them.
Residents came along and bought their favourites with one, Resident Carol saying “she’d loved being able to choose for herself” and had a great laugh with the homes Physio, Gerard who was trying to tempt her with buying other things!
Sewing Club
Residents of Drummond Grange host sewing club which brought the ladies together. For one resident Janice who hadn’t used a sewing machine or sewed for a while decided to make a colourful face mask for herself.
As Janice wasn’t able to reach the foot pedal the home adapted how she would do it. The face covering had been pre-cut and all she needed to do was use her hand to press the foot pedal. Janice was a bit apprehensive at first but soon got the hang of it and was delighted with the end result!
Birthday celebrations
Celebrations have been in full swing at Drummond Grange Care Home, as one of its residents reached his 80th birthday in style.
Sam was joined by his 2 sisters who managed to have a ‘garden visit’ with him on his special day. Staff made sure that the birthday boy, Sam had a special day by decorating the lounge especially for his visit and the hospitality team made a delicious birthday cake for him to share with his sisters.
Sam was born in Glasgow and moved through to Edinburgh as a young child. Sam worked a gardener in various places including Edinburgh Zoo. Sam is very proud of having his picture in the paper with Princess Anne when she made a visit to the Zoo. Sam is now enjoying a new chapter of his life at Drummond Grange.
A special thank you
At Drummond Grange we have been holding garden visits for the last month and families have always been very thankful and grateful to staff for getting to spend this time with their loved one. We received a lovely ‘Thank You’ card recently for a family member of one of our residents on the Memory Lane unit, she was very thankful at being able to see her mum and said that visits are “All done with a smile and you show how much you care”.
We also received a lovely email from another family member in the email she say “Just wanted to thank you and your staff for organising everything so well, staff couldn’t be more accommodating, caring and cheerful…Well Done”
Staff love hearing these messages from families as it shows them that even though families are not able to come into the home they still appreciate and see how much they care for the residents.
National Dog Day
In honour of National Dog Day on the 26th August Drummond Grange decided to hold a ‘Best Dog Competition’. Residents, relatives and staff were invited to send in pictures of their dogs, that were then displayed around the home for everyone to see and cast their vote for the best dog. Residents also helped to make dog biscuits to give to the winners. The activity team helped residents to cast their votes for the best dog in the 2 categories of ‘Small Dogs’ and ‘Medium/large Dogs’.
Everyone loved seeing all the pictures of the dogs and reading a little about them. In each category there was a 1st, 2nd and 3rd winner. The Large Dog 1st prize went to a residents family dog, Isaac who is a Romanian rescue cross breed. The small dog winner was a staff members dog, Molly who is a 1year old Chihuahua. Everyone loved the competition and can’t wait to hold a Best Cat Competition!
Residents enjoy art therapy
Residents at Drummond Grange are always looking at ways to keep themselves occupied and their minds active during these changing times. Our residents have always enjoyed taking part in Art groups before the pandemic, but now in times of social distancing and with some residents more anxious at being in a small group setting we have been spending time doing ‘Adult colouring in Therapy’ to help relax their minds. Frances enjoyed spending some individual time with the Lifestyle coordinator colouring in the beautiful pictures in the Art Therapy book and chatting about her family.
